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‘ Oh, we must revive the spirit of chivalry, Lois. It is too beautiful 
to pass away forever.’ ” Frontispiece. See page 187. 


BETTY BAIRD 


BY 

ANNA HAMLIN WEIKEL 

I > 


With Illustrations from Drawings 
by Ethel Pennewill Brown 


I 


BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1906 


OG - Z'^llS' 


LIBB/IRV of CONGRESS 
Two Conios Received 

AUG 27 1906 

CoDyru^iX Entry 
CLASS^^ XXc, No. 

03(m 

COPY B. 



Copyright, lQo6, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
All rights reser’ved 


Published, October, 1906 


UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U, S. A. 


Contents 

CHAPTER page 

I. Betty hears the Great News .... i 

11 . The Secret i6 

III. Dear Old Miss Jane 24 

IV. At last the Day ! 36 

V. Her Unexpected Welcome 52 

VI. The Challenge 62 

VII. A Roommate 78 

VIII. The Duel — after all 88 

IX. Her First Reception 98 

X. Hallowe’en 117 

XI. The Play 130 

XII. At Home for Christmas 156 

XIII. A Feast, a Trial, a New Teacher . .163 

XIV. Miss Jane’s “ Seed Picter ” . . . .188 

XV. The Order of the Cup ...... 200 

XVI. The Return of the Shipwrecked Mariner 215 

XVII. The Masquerade 238 

XVIII. The Class Election 249 

XIX. Betty and Lois talk over the Summer . 258 

XX. Her Commencement 265 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


‘ Oh, we must revive the spirit of chivalry, Lois. 

It is too beautiful to pass away forever ’ ** Frontispiece 

“ At the entrance of the dining-room Betty halted 

spellbound ” Page 52 

“ At the Fairies’ Hour, from twelve to one, eight 

fairies entered the room ” “169 

** She was a very different girl from the one who 
had come to the school nearly three years 
before” 277 




Betty Baird 


I 


BETTY HEARS THE GREAT NEWS 


“ T HAVE such a lovely new book ! ” 

I “ Oh, have you, Betty ? What is it ? ” 
asked Edith. 

“ Why, ‘ Rose Reeves of Belle Haven,’ ” 
replied Betty, with enthusiasm. 

“ A boarding-school book t ” asked Edith, 
eagerly. 

Betty’s affirmative nod was triumphant. 

“ Oh, goody ! Let me have it when you 
are done with it } ” 

“ Of course ! Edith, would n’t it be just 
grand if we could go to boarding school ” 


“Wouldn’t it!” agreed Edith, enthusias- 
tically. 

“ But I sometimes fear I ’ll never get to 
one,” continued Betty, mournfully. “ I sup- 


2 


BETTY BAIRD 


pose I’ll have to be like Miss Jane and go 
out sewing for a living.” 

“ Oh, you goose ! Imagine your ever being 
like dear old Miss Jane ; ” and Edith laughed 
hilariously at Betty’s lugubrious countenance. 

“ What in the world are you laughing so 
about .f*” asked a third girl who had just 
approached. 

“ Oh, Ada, what do you think ! ” exclaimed 
Edith, excitedly, neglecting to answer the 
question. “ Betty has a new boarding-school 
book out of the Sunday-School library ! ” 
“Well, you two are the craziest things 
about boarding school I ever saw. You don’t 
ever expect to go to one, do you.^^ You 
would n’t know how to act if you did,” Ada 
informed them mockingly. 

“ I should,” replied Betty, firmly. “ I 
should know exactly how to act in every 
circumstance. I have learned all about it 
in ‘Four Years at Lakeside’ and ‘Good 
Times at Irvington.’ ” 

“ Oh, you have ! ” said Ada, sarcastically. 
“ Well, you ’ll never get there, anyhow, and 
you might as well make up your mind to 


BETTY HEARS GREAT NEWS 3 

that first as last ; ” with which cheering piece 
of advice she walked off. 

“ ‘ Quoth the Raven, “ Nevermore,” ’ ” 
croaked Betty, looking after her disgustedly ; 
and the two friends, sitting on the wistaria- 
covered porch of the old manse, their heads 
close together, were soon absorbed in their 
new find. 

The same evening, Betty, the daughter of 
Doctor Baird, the Presbyterian minister of 
the village of Weston, was walking to church 
with her mother, when her father, who had 
been stalking gloomily a little in advance, 
painfully engrossed with his evening sermon, 
turned suddenly, saying, — 

“ Elizabeth, come into my study after the 
service.” 

Betty had just passed her fourteenth birth- 
day. She was small for her age. A mass 
of tow-colored hair, with a promising glint 
of gold in it, framed the soft oval of a win- 
some face lighted up by dark, glowing eyes. 
Her mouth in repose may have had classical 
shape, but, as she was an incessant talker, 
this was problematic. Dressed in simple 


4 


BETTY BAIRD 


dimity, and wearing a jaunty white sailor hat 
with an aggressive looking red quill stuck in 
the band, she was a picture which drew many 
pleased, friendly glances. 

She was leaning confidingly close to her 
mother, with her slim sun-browned hands 
locked affectionately over her arm, and was 
talking with her accustomed impetuosity, the 
whimsical curves of her mouth indicating 
that the subject was humorous. At her 
father’s abrupt words she stopped her chat- 
tering and looked up at her mother, squeez- 
ing her arm questioningly. 

“ What ’s up now ? ” she whispered, uneas- 
ily; but as they were about to enter the 
church she received no answer, except a 
look which told her to wait. During the 
quiet service she felt like a culprit; to her 
excited imagination there was an added aw- 
fulness in her father’s voice, and a distinct 
flame in his severe black eyes. Every word 
was a menace. 

“ But what have I done ? ” was the insist- 
ent question in her mind. She went search- 
ingly over the day ; but not one transgression 


BETTY HEARS GREAT NEWS 5 

could she uncover, unless — was it possible 
that, after all these years, her father had, in 
the morning service, seen her eat those three 
pink peppermints which Mr. Jones had given 
her ? Ever since she could remember, it had 
been Mr. Jones’ custom to push stealthily 
along the seat, with plump freckled hands, 
three, always three, pink peppermints. To- 
day he made his customary offering while 
they were singing “ How tedious and taste- 
less the hour ! ” and she had wondered if the 
solemn little man had meant to perpetrate a 
sly joke. She considered Mr. Jones a per- 
fectly delightful old gentleman, with his red 
wig, stubby gray whiskers, and big steel- 
bowed spectacles. His preternaturally sol- 
emn blue eyes, peering out of his sandy face, 
itself not unlike a pink peppermint, never 
wandered from the preacher. There was 
something pleasantly clandestine about the 
whole performance. 

“ Well,” Betty mused, “ if it was not the 
peppermint business it may have been that 
laugh.” 

She had happened to look over where old 


6 


BETTY BAIRD 


Mr. Dinkum, with a blissful expression, sat 
singing “ Now wash me and I shall be whiter 
than snow.” As his face and hands never 
failed unmistakably to advertise his coal 
business, the incongruity of it had made her 
hide her face in her handkerchief to conceal 
her laugh. 

Even this did not seem sufficient for a 
summons to the study at this unusual time. 
So, finding nothing to keep her buoyant 
spirits weighed down, she said comfortably 
to herself, “ ‘ A good conscience is a continual 
Christmas ; ’ ” and gave herself up to listening 
to the sermon and watching the people. 

After the doxology, however, she again 
began to question whether it might not be 
the pink peppermints or Mr. Dinkum. As 
several of the church members insisted on 
walking home with her mother, she had no 
opportunity to ask the burning question, and 
hurried ahead impatiently, determined to get 
to the study early and have the ordeal over. 

She reached there some time before her 
father. This was not the first occasion on 
which she had been summoned into the pres- 


BETTY HEARS GREAT NEWS 7 

ence of those august theological books and 
stern line engravings of great and good men, 
and she had always left them weeping, to 
find in her mother’s arms the mercy which 
tempers justice. 

However, to-night she was not wholly cast 
down, for she had the sustaining conscious- 
ness that at least she had gone through the 
evening service without one outward devia- 
tion from the best possible church deport- 
ment. It was not always thus. At her age 
girls have eyes all around their heads, and 
things seem planned so that nothing ridicu- 
lous escapes them, and these eyes of hers 
had got her into many a scrape ; but to- 
night she sat almost composedly in the 
dimly lighted study, and Dante’s stern face 
looked less forbiddingly at her out of his un- 
tied night-cap (as she thought it was), and 
Martin Luther appeared quite recklessly fat 
and jovial. Thus does a good conscience 
reflect itself on all the surroundings. 

Waiting made Betty restless, however, and 
the familiar objects in the room soon lost 
their interest. 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ Why does n’t father come ? What is it all 
about? Oh, dear, won’t those people ever 
go ? ” She slid out of her chair and went to 
the landing at the head of the stairs to see 
if they were still there. Yes, their tranquil 
voices floated up on the summer breeze to 
the impatient, sleepy child. 

“ They will never go,” she said, half aloud, 
as she went back into the study and began 
to look at her father’s books, pointing them 
out to herself, and whispering the titles, 
“ Robertson’s Sermons,” “ History of the 
Reformation,” “ Chateaubriand’s Genius of 
Christianity,” “ Commentary on the Holy 
Scriptures.” 

They had never failed to interest her, but 
to-night she followed them with indifferent 
eyes until she came to ’her father’s copy of 
Thomas a Kempis. At the sight of the 
worn cover her face grew bright, and she 
took it down lovingly and carried it to the 
table; curling up in the chair she was soon 
lost in it. She had lately read “ The Mill on 
the Floss,” and it had awakened in her “that 
instinct of emulation which is but the other 


BETTY HEARS GREAT NEWS 9 

side of sympathy.” Maggie Tulliver was 
just her own age when she had found the 
old monk’s book, which, with its note of self- 
renouncement, had marked the turning point 
in her life. Betty had felt she could never 
be happy again until she possessed a copy 
of “ the little old clumsy book,” and she had 
begged her father to give her one for her 
birthday present. Maggie’s later and great 
renunciation did not interest Betty, for she 
took out of books only the things that ap- 
pealed to her girlish sympathies. 

Betty had waited a quarter of an hour or 
more, when her father entered with deliber- 
ate step. She jumped out of the chair and 
offered it to him, glad that the suspense was 
over at last. The door opened again, and, 
to her delight, her mother came in, and the 
two sat down together on the sofa. Doctor 
Baird coughed, as he always did before speak- 
ing, — a thin, scholarly little cough. He was 
a very good man, and deeply learned ; but he 
was not intimately acquainted with childhood, 
and Betty had some fear mingled with her love 
for him. Without preliminaries he said, — 


lo BETTY BAIRD 

“You have just passed your fourteenth 
birthday, Elizabeth, and your mother and I 
have had many long conversations about 
your future. It seems best that you should 
be educated, so that you can teach in case 
you are deprived of my support.” He 
paused, his thin, long fingers playing nerv- 
ously with his gold penholder. 

“ You are aware,” he continued, “ that the 
educational facilities of Weston are meagre, 
and that you have almost exhausted their 
resources, so we have decided to send you 
to boarding school.” Again he paused and 
looked down reflectively, missing the radiant 
smile, which, for an unthinking instant, flashed 
across his daughter’s face ; but the smile was 
immediately followed by a cloud, as the 
thought rushed in that this meant leaving 
home. 

“ Oh, I can’t go. I can’t leave you and 
mother,” she cried, putting her head on the 
shoulder of her mother, who gently smoothed 
the tangled locks. 

“You surprise me, Elizabeth,” replied her 
father, in his steady, even voice. “ I believed 


BETTY HEARS GREAT NEWS ii 


you possessed of too much fortitude to give 
way to childish weakness. Your mother 
and I are doing this for your own best 
good.” 

“ Oh, I know you are,” cried the child, re- 
morsefully, lifting her head and dabbing her 
eyes recklessly, “ only I can’t be brave all at 
once. May n’t I wait another year ? But I 
do just love boarding schools ! ” 

Her mother smiled and patted the hot 
little fist holding the crumpled handker- 
chief. 

“ I am glad the idea is not wholly repug- 
nant to you,” remarked her father, dryly. 

“ Oh, it is not the boarding school. But 
I can’t — I can’t leave mother — and you — 
and home — and — ” and sobs hyphenated 
the words. Her mother drew her closer, 
saying softly, — 

“ I know my brave little daughter will not 
give way. It will be hard for your father 
and me, and you can help us bear it.” 

“I will, I will;” and she sat up deter- 
minedly. 

“Now I think we can pursue the matter 


12 


BETTY BAIRD 


with more calmness,” remarked her father, as 
one who had retreated to a safe corner until 
the storm should pass and then emerged into 
the sunshine. 

“ As you know, we have always purposed 
sending you to The Pines, our Cousin Eliza- 
beth’s school. A letter from her determines 
us to have you go next month. It is the 
part of wisdom to overcome our natural 
reluctance to separate.” 

At these words Betty flew over to him, 
and, throwing her arms around him, told him 
between excited hugs, that she would be 
good and do exactly as he wished. “ For you 
are the bestest father in the whole world,” 
she said fervently. He smiled at her, pat- 
ting and kissing her flushed cheek. 

“ Now run back to your mother and get 
quiet, for I want to say a few words to you.” 
He was less unbending and bookish than 
usual and much of her awe vanished. 

“In the first place, daughter, you are 
going among girls who have been reared in 
the lap of luxury and whose tastes and habits 
will greatly differ from yours. I want you 


BETTY HEARS GREAT NEWS 13 

to preserve your own commendable simplic- 
ity, nurtured as it has been by your mother. 
Wealth, expressed in fine clothes and extrav- 
agant expenditures, brings neither happiness 
nor peace.” 

“ Oh, you know, father, I don’t care a 
thing about grand dresses for myself. I 
scorn them ; ” and Betty gave a superior 
sniff. 

Her mother glanced at her husband with 
a pleased look, saying, “ I am sure Eliza- 
beth will not be dissatisfied, even if her 
belongings do not quite equal those of the 
other girls. She never thinks about such 
things.” 

“ I am glad to hear it,” replied her father, 
smiling pleasantly. “ I want my daughter to 
devote her thoughts to worthier subjects. 
Preserve your independence, but — ” and he 
hesitated, for his daughters characteristics 
were not very clear to him, “ — if there is a 
tendency in your nature, as I have sometimes 
thought, to be too impetuous and enthusiastic, 
you must try to overcome it, or you will find 
it difficult to accommodate yourself to the 


BETTY BAIRD 


14 

ordered life of the school. You should cul- 
tivate the habit of thinking twice before you 
speak.” 

“ I don’t see how I could think twice 
before I speak, father, for the words fly out 
of my mouth before I know what they are to 
be ; ” and Betty looked puzzled. Her parents 
laughed, and her mother remarked, — 

“ That is a lesson you must learn gradu- 
ally, dearie, for it does not come to you natu- 
rally as — quoting does;” and she smiled 
with a reproving shake of her head. 

“Why, that just pops out too,” said Betty. 
“But is The Pines a real palace, father 
she asked eagerly. “ I ’d love to live in one 
for a while, to see hov/ it feels.” 

“ Oh, not a palace, child. I am sure Cousin 
Elizabeth’s school, while no doubt a substan- 
tial and comfortable building, will be far from 
that. Do not have your expectations raised 
too high, my little enthusiast.” 

“ It ’s long after Elizabeth’s bed hour,” sug- 
gested her mother, softly. 

“ Oh, I ’d love to sit up all night and talk 
about it,” exclaimed Betty. 


BETTY HEARS GREAT NEWS 15 

“I fear there will not be much sleep for 
those bright eyes to-night,” said Mrs. Baird. 

“Yes, it is time to say good-night,” said 
the father ; and Betty kissed them both and 
ran to her room. 


II 


THE SECRET 

t ONG that night Betty lay sleepless. 
. She could not have told whether 
sorrow or joy predominated in the 
crowded emotions of her heart. She must 
leave home. Sorrow ! She was going to 
boarding school. Joy! 

Her reading comprehended a wide range 
of subjects for one of her age ; but she loved 
poetry best of all, and this love, combined 
with an unusually retentive verbal memory, 
filled her mind with a great variety of poetic 
quotations. In prose she found the greatest 
excitement in boarding-school stories, and 
the Sunday-School librarian could not keep 
up with her eager demand for “ more board- 
ing-school books.” 

Elizabeth Baird of Weston in a boarding 
school I Surely she dreamed I She could 
hardly wait for morning, when she could 


THE SECRET 


17 

tell the wondrous news to Edith Kenneday. 
She could see it printed in the Weston 
Gazette: “Elizabeth (maybe they will call 
me Miss now) Baird, daughter of the Rev- 
erend Doctor Baird, has just left for board- 
ing school. The fashionable and widely 
known school. The Pines, has been selected 
for our young friend.” She would cut it 
out and show it to the other girls at The 
Pines. 

Her excited little head was crowded with 
fancies, while pictures of The Pines rolled 
before her like those of her old kaleidoscope, 
— fragments put together out of stories and 
dreams, — making a strange medley of color 
and form. She thought of her beloved 
Lillie Bent in “Four Years at Lakeside.” 
Could she emulate the lovely Lillie, and be 
the favorite, not for any personal charm, 
but because she was good, and unselfish, 
and darned her roommate’s stockings, nursed 
the other girls when they were sick, and was 
gentle and kind to the timid new ones .5^ 
This had a great fascination for her, for she 
was still under the spell of Maggie Tulliver’s 


BETTY BAIRD 


example; but the memory of the vexatious 
way darning-cotton has of tangling, and the 
endless precepts of her mother about puck- 
ering and drawing up holes, lessened her 
enthusiasm. 

Or could she be a fascinating madcap like 
Peggy, in “ Good Times at Irvington,” play- 
ing pranks, the leader of all the midnight 
feasts, the ingenious contriver of all the dif- 
ferent forms of forbidden fun ? 

There, too, was the proud, dark-haired 
Rose Reeves of Belle Haven School, in the 
book she had read that very afternoon, so 
exclusive that all vied to gain her friendship. 
Should she be like her.? This picture held 
her imagination for a moment, but was 
dismissed peremptorily. Loving little thing 
that she was, she could not, even in thought, 
bear the sense of loneliness. Oh, no! She 
never, never could be like the proud Rose ! 
She would love her schoolmates as soon as 
she saw them. They would be eager to see 
her, for of course new girls are always in- 
teresting, and they would soon see she was n’t 
stuck up. They would all crowd around 


THE SECRET 


19 

her, and she would tell them about Weston 
and Edith, and would show them her father’s 
and mother’s pictures. She must not forget 
to take something to eat, — cake or ginger- 
snaps, for they would sit up late talking 
and would get hungry. She felt sure there 
never were such nice girls as those at The 
Pines. Oh, she must be so kind, and not 
want everything her own way, as that hate- 
ful Liz Clayton said she did; though, of 
course, everybody knew Liz said it because 
she was mad at her, and there was n’t a grain 
of truth in it. She would be unselfish, as 
her mother wanted her to be. She would 
try so hard. 

How could she remember their names? 
Meeting so many girls at once she would 
have trouble, though names were easy for 
her. One would be Annie, another Mary, 
and oh, perhaps one would have that beauti- 
fully romantic name of Gwendolen. Would 
they like her old-fashioned name? Very 
likely they would soon, maybe that very 
night, have a special name for her; girls at 
boarding school are so funny and original! 


20 


BETTY BAIRD 


They never do things like other girls. One 
thing she was sure of, she would not be 
indifferent to her studies. She would be 
valedictorian. 

Mingled with this high courage and fleet- 
ing ambition of the fledgling was the true 
yearning for the home nest; and she was 
glad when it was light enough to get up 
and see her mother. No sooner was break- 
fast finished than she threw on her white 
sailor hat, snapping the elastic under her 
chin, kissed her mother, and skipped out 
of the house. That wretched lump persisted 
in sticking in her throat whenever her eyes 
fell on her mother, and she wanted to get 
away. Then there was The Secret! 

“ I am going to tell Edith, mother,” she 
called out, as she hurried past the window, 
adding good-naturedly, “ Won’t she be mad 
because she is n’t going ? ” 

“ What will your new preceptress say, 
when she hears you say ‘mad’?” asked her 
mother. Betty made an exaggerated curtsey, 
her hand to her heart, as she suggested, — 

“ ‘ Grieved, if it please you. Miss Baird,’ ” 


THE SECRET 


21 


and, with a saucy swing, she ran out of the 
yard, calling back over her shoulder, — 

“ ‘ . . . all the world round 
If man bear to have it so, 

Things which might vex him shall be found.’” 

“Such a memory! Now where did she 
pick that up ? ” smiled her mother, as she 
watched her beckon eagerly to a girl of her 
own age who was coming out of a pretty, 
old-fashioned house opposite. 

“ Oh, Edith, wait a minute,” she cried 
excitedly, and dashed across. “ I have a 
secret to tell you, such a secret! Now 
promise me you won’t tell a soul, not even 
Ada.” 

“ I promise,” replied Edith, earnestly, her 
eyes as big as saucers. 

“Cross your heart,” demanded Betty, sol- 
emnly. 

“ Honor bright ! ” 

“ You promise you ’ll never divulge this 
secret to Amy or Martha or Jane ? ” con- 
tinued Betty, impressively. 

“ Hope I ’ll never ! ” 

“ I feel I can trust you, Edith,” responded 


22 


BETTY BAIRD 


Betty, with an air of importance. A new 
dignity had come into her voice, and Edith 
was not slow to feel the change. She saw 
that Betty was on one of her high horses. 

During these strict Masonic preliminaries, 
the two girls had been standing in front of 
the Kenneday home ; but now, by a common 
impulse, they threw their arms around each 
other’s waists, and simultaneously hopped, 
skipped, and jumped up the street, Edith’s 
long black braid bobbing up and down 
rhythmically, while Betty’s taffy-colored mop 
“ stood out six ways for Sunday.” After they 
had skipped up and down; after Betty had 
tied anew Edith’s neat little red bow at the 
end of her cue, and had fastened her own 
refractory shoestrings ; after Edith had dis- 
covered that Betty had missed the middle 
button of her dress and had rectified the 
oversight; after they had looked carefully in 
every direction to see that no one was within 
hearing distance, the time was ripe. 

Betty’s dark eyes were bright with excite- 
ment, and her lips crimson with the vain 
struggle to tell The Secret with proper dig- 


THE SECRET 


23 

nity and effect. Such a secret cannot be 
told offhand, as one may say “ I have re- 
ceived a valentine.” There is a difference in 
secrets, as all girls know, and Edith Ken- 
neday was the last to grumble at proper cere- 
mony. She knew with what haughty eyes 
she, as the sole sharer of The Secret, would 
look at Ada and the rest of the crowd. 

After all, it just came out. “ I am going 
to boarding school next month.” 

Edith screamed, dropped her arm from 
Betty’s waist, and stared at her with wide- 
eyed amazement. 

“ Oh, oh ! I ’ll never believe you, never, 
never! ’’she protested, wringing her hands. 
Even Betty was satisfied with the effect. 
Ada, May, Jane, Martha, and Sallie knew it 
ten minutes later. 


Ill 


DEAR OLD MISS JANE 

M rs. BAIRD now had to deal with 
the vexatious question of Betty’s 
clothes. The Pines was a fashion- 
able boarding school, one ordinarily far be- 
yond their modest income; but the principal, 
Miss Elizabeth Payne, was Doctor Baird’s 
cousin, and to show her gratitude for all his 
father had done for her when she was a 
young orphan, she had insisted on preparing 
her namesake for college. 

It was a great opportunity for Betty, and 
her mother was therefore doubly anxious to 
see her properly equipped to take her place 
among her schoolmates. She felt she could 
do this with the assistance of the good Miss 
Jane Hufnagel, the Weston authority on 
clothes, who, as she believed, kept herself 
conscientiously versed in all the latest New 
York styles. Without one misgiving Mrs. 


DEAR OLD MISS JANE 25 

Baird gave the making of her daughter’s 
wardrobe into her deft fingers. Through 
the warm August month she, too, sat and 
sewed, that Betty might appear well in the 
great school on the Hudson. Her lips 
quivered and her eyes grew dim as she 
thought of the years without the light of 
the teasing sunbeam of their home ; but her 
hands did not falter nor did the stitches 
drop. A sigh came as she remembered the 
number of made-over dresses her child had 
worn, though clothes occupied a remote 
place in her mind, and she was ignorant that 
any one could receive false valuation from 
them. The genuine charm of her Elizabeth, 
of her sweet, impulsive nature, occupied a 
far larger place in her thoughts. 

As she was considering these things Miss 
Jane Hufnagel came in and immediately be- 
gan to sew. Miss Jane was no longer young 
and was far from handsome, but never did 
breast enclose a kinder heart nor mouth a 
sharper tongue. Tall, angular, gray and worn, 
she was a marvel of unflagging industry. 
When she had nothing else to do she knitted 


26 


BETTY BAIRD 


twine wash rags. She knitted when visiting 
the sick, when waiting in the store, when call- 
ing on her friends; even in prayer-meeting 
many a wash rag was begun or finished before 
the arrival of the preacher. Every one in 
town saved bits of twine for her, and the rolls 
bulged out the sidjss of her big black cloth 
handbag, her inseparable companion, in which 
also she carried her knitting needles. There 
was hardly a spare room in the village that 
did not boast of at least one of her famous 
twine wash rags. 

In her eyes, to waste time would be as 
sinful as to throw away the good crusts of 
bread which she munched heroically with 
her few remaining teeth. The one pun with 
which she lightened her labors was that she 
was “ crusty ” because she ate so many crusts. 
How Betty grew to watch for that pun ! It 
never failed to elicit a hearty laugh, which 
greatly flattered the maiden lady. 

Miss Jane collected quantities of clothes for 
the poor of the town, while to fill barrels for 
the missionaries of the West was the romance 
of her life; and with every barrel went one 


DEAR OLD MISS JANE 27 

or more of her own twine wash rags. She 
kept close watch of people’s clothing, and 
used to inquire where such and such a gar- 
ment might be. 

“You have worn that long enough,” she 
was wont to say. “ It is too seedy fer you, 
and it is time you was givin’ it to me fer my 
mission’ry bar’l ; ” and she usually got it. 

To-day, as Mrs. Baird brought out a long 
coat of Betty’s to ask her advice about it, 
Miss Jane began, — 

“ You must gimme that ulster fer my mis- 
sion’ry bar’l. ’Lizbeth has been wearin’ it 
fer three years an’ a ha’f, and it won’t do 
fer no high-tunned school. I know styles. 
I ’ll take them buttons off and sew on 
common ones. Them ’ll do fer somethin’ 
else.” 

“ I won’t have those buttons taken off,” 
called out Betty, who was reading by the 
window. 

“ Highty-tighty ! ” snapped Miss Jane. 

“ I won’t. They are beautiful buttons and 
the coat will be real ugly without them. I 
love those buttons, but I have had them for 


28 


BETTY BAIRD 


nearly four years, and now I want that little 
missionary girl to have them. Don’t you 
think she will love them too.^^ It is down- 
right mean to take off all the pretty things 
when you give anything away. Poor people 
like them just as much as we do. I know 
that little missionary girl will dance when 
she gets those buttons.” 

Mrs. Baird nodded approvingly. 

“ I am going to write a letter,” continued 
Betty, charmed with the idea, “and put it 
into one pocket, and some candy into the 
other, for a surprise.” 

Miss Jane was thoughtful and dark browed. 
“ It ain’t right or forehanded to leave on 
them good buttons. I never done such a 
thing in all my born days. Buttons, spe- 
cially handsome large ones, is dressy and 
come in as handy! It ain’t right,” she mut- 
tered, as she turned over the coat, lookinof at 
the buttons thoughtfully and fingering them 
yearningly. 

“ It ’s principle, you know, Mrs. Baird, 
it ’s principle to take off such good things 
when you give clothes away. Whoever 


DEAR OLD MISS JANE 29 

went and left on nice big feathers or perky 
lookin’ flowers on a hat fer the poor ! ” 

Mrs. Baird shook her head smilingly, 
for she agreed fully with Betty ; but she did 
not wish to oppose Miss Jane, who felt she 
ought not to yield the idea of thrift dear to 
her Pennsylvania Dutch conscience. Yet 
Betty’s plea appealed to Miss Jane’s sense 
of justice and to her warm love for the un- 
known little missionary girl away out West. 

“ Principle is principle, ’Lizbeth,” she 
said, after a moment’s silence, looking 
sternly at the girl, who by this time had 
forgotten the whole discussion and was deep 
in her beloved book of ballads. Betty 
looked up vaguely, her eyes dark and misty 
with far-off things, and struggled to get back 
to the present. 

“You are turrible sot in your ways, 
’Lizbeth,” continued Miss Jane. “ But fer 
oncet you was right. Them buttons goes 
to the little mission’ry girl.” 

“ ‘ This rugged virtue makes me gasp,’ ” 
quoted Betty, in reply, her eyes twinkling 
with mischief as she kissed her affection- 


BETTY BAIRD 


30 

ately, for at last it had dawned on her re- 
turned faculties that Miss Jane had yielded 
the point. 

“No impidence, missy,” retorted Miss 
Jane, feeling the very foundations of the 
habit of years giving way as she decided 
to leave ' on the buttons. “ It ’s too late 
now to begin anything else ; I must go to 
work and knit,” she said to Mrs. Baird, after 
rolling up the ulster and putting it away. 
She took out her knitting, and the bright 
needles clicked cheerfully and busily, sooth- 
ing her ruffled spirits. Presently she said, — 
“ Mrs. Baird, a stimulated vest is the thing 
fer that black silk dress of yourn that we ’re 
makin’ over fer ’Lizbeth. So dressy ! ” 

“ A-a-what kind of a vest is that } ” asked 
Mrs. Baird, in surprise. 

“ A stimulated one, a imitation one,” Miss 
Jane replied impatiently. 

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Baird, as she found 
it convenient to leave the room. 

“Style’s the thing, somethin’ dressy,” con- 
tinued Miss Jane, when Mrs. Baird resumed 
her seat. 


DEAR OLD MISS JANE 31 

As Betty had left the room to take a 
walk with Edith, they fell to talking about 
her. 

“You have known Elizabeth since she 
was a baby, and has it not struck you that 
she is somewhat different from the other 
girls of her age ? ” asked Mrs. Baird. 

“ Different ! ” Miss Jane snorted. “ She ’s 
as different from them as one of them eagles 
that mounts to the sky the Rev’rend is so 
fond of is from my little yaller hen. She ’s 
a eagle, is ’Lizbeth. She mounts! What 
girl knows the potry she does and them 
quotations she *s always spoutin’ .? ” 

“She has a remarkable memory, but I 
hear that is common to childhood.” 

“Common! Huh! It’s stylish. Nothing 
plain or everyday. She beats that elocu- 
tioner that was here.” 

By and by Betty appeared, gay and 
hungry from her short tramp after autumn 
flowers, her hands full of the glories of 
golden-rod and asters. 

“ ‘ He moileth and moileth all the long year, 

How can he be merry and make good cheer ? ’ ” 


BETTY BAIRD 


32 

she sang out at the top of her sweet 
young voice as she clattered into the house. 
“ Oh, I ’m so tired. Where shall I put 
these ? ” 

She found an old blue pitcher into which 
she put the flowers, and placed them on the 
mahogany table which stood against the 
wall. Their rich beauty glorified the com- 
monplace room. Betty stood back to see 
the effect. 

“ Oh, are n’t they beautiful ! ” she ex- 
claimed, clasping her hands over her breast 
and drawing a deep breath. “ They looked 
so brave and upright out there, with every- 
thing dying around them. It seemed as 
though they tried to be bright just to com- 
fort us, because it will soon be winter and 
no green things about.” 

“ My, what a fanciful child ! ” exclaimed 
Miss Jane, rocking and knitting excitedly, 
and glancing proudly at Mrs. Baird with an 
“ I told you so ! ” look, and muttering, so 
that Betty could not hear, 

“ She mounts ! A eagle ! ” 

“What’s that, Miss Jane?” Betty asked. 


DEAR OLD MISS JANE 33 

for she v/as very fond of her and could not 
bear to miss any of her funny sayings. 

“A layover for meddlers,” snapped Miss 
Jane, shrewishly biting off a bit of twine 
with her two projecting front teeth. She 
would not spoil Betty, oh, no! She had 
strong and positive theories about rearing 
children. Her chief theory was that they 
should be seen and not heard, and she usu- 
ally lived up to it by asking Betty to recite 
one of her longest “ pieces.” 

“ Let ’s hear you speak your Sir Gellihed 
speech,” was the request this time. After 
giving Miss Jane a hug, and calling her a 
“ dear, hateful, crosscrusty old thing,” Betty 
recited until Miss Jane’s needles were quiet, 
and she furtively wiped her eyes with the 
half-finished wash rag. When Betty was 
through, she turned to Mrs. Baird and said, 
in a softened voice, — 

“ The child must have one of them knitted 
bead chains like Millie Haines’s ; and I ’ll 
begin it to-night.” 

Betty clapped her hands ecstatically. 

“Oh, Miss Jane, you can’t mean it! It’s 
3 


BETTY BAIRD 


34 

too good to be true. I Ve wanted one for 
ever so long, and I could die happy if I 
could have one of those splendid, aristo- 
cratic bead chains.” 

“Die, fiddlesticks!” retorted Miss Jane, 
always restive under any evidence of grat- 
itude; and Mrs. Baird, after thanking her, 
said she hoped Cousin Elizabeth would be 
more successful in toning down her daugh- 
ter’s language than she had been. 

“ I don’t seem to please this select com- 
pany, so I ’ll get me hence,” said Betty, as 
she went out into the kitchen to see how 
supper was progressing ; but she looked back 
to quote in sepulchral voice, “ ‘ ’T is barbar- 
ous to insult a fallen foe.’ ” 

A few weeks later, when the dresses were 
finished, Mrs. Baird said to her husband, — 

“ I was a little anxious about Elizabeth’s 
wardrobe, for I have heard that city children 
have as new and elegant things as their 
parents, but now I am relieved. Miss Jane 
has outdone herself. The child has a charm- 
ing outfit ; ” and she sighed contentedly. 


DEAR OLD MISS JANE 35 

“ I rejoice that Elizabeth is well equipped,” 
Doctor Baird replied; “though I am sure 
Cousin Elizabeth would not countenance any 
extravagance. My mother always made over 
her dresses for her and father’s suits for 
me; and without doubt we shall find the 
reports of the grandeur of The Pines greatly 
exaggerated.” 

“ How Cousin Elizabeth will love the 
child ! ” said the mother. 


IV 


AT LAST THE DAY ! 

HE eagerly awaited tenth of Sep- 



tember, the day on which Betty was 


to start for The Pines, saw her up 
bright and early. Her trunk had been 
packed the night before by her mother, who 
hid many tears in tenderly prolonging the 
smoothing of the wrinkleless dresses in its 
depths. Into her brand-new satchel Betty 
put her toilet articles and some delicious 
chocolate candies which Edith had made for 
her, thinking, with a thrill, that she would 
save them for her new schoolmates, for are 
not boarding-school girls always half starved ? 

At the last moment Miss Jane brought 
the promised bead chain, and a dazzling 
affair it was. It created some painful doubts 
in Mrs. Baird’s mind, but Betty was as happy 
over it as if it were made of turquoise and 
diamonds. Miss Jane’s delight in the child’s 


AT LAST THE DAY! 


37 

pride over her new possession somewhat 
assuaged the loneliness she was feeling over 
her pet’s departure. The bead chain, Betty 
decided, was not to be worn on the journey; 
she would save it for some special occasion 
like a reception, and would n’t the girls open 
their eyes! There was not one in Weston 
as beautiful and stylish ; and she doubted if 
even The Pines could produce its equal. 
Miss Jane was doubly pleased, for she be- 
lieved in “ saving things,” not in using one’s 
best for everyday purposes. Not to have 
Sunday clothes was a sign of shiftlessness. 

The lump in Betty’s throat grew larger 
as train time drew near. “ You must n’t go 
to the station, mother,” she said, “ for I 
could n’t get into the cars and leave you. 
If you are here, I ’ll make believe I ’m only 
going to see father off, as I did when he went 
to the General Assembly.” 

To hide her own feelings her mother kept 
up a steady conversation. “ Miss Jane made 
a characteristic remark last night,” she said, 
as they all tried to eat their breakfast. 

“ Oh, what was it ? ” asked Betty, glad the 


BETTY BAIRD 


38 

silence was not broken by her sobs, as she 
had expected it would be in another minute. 

“ When she was leaving,” resumed Mrs. 
Baird, “she lingered in the hall, the light 
bringing out all the kind little wrinkles, and 
revealing the sympathy of her dear old heart 
as she said to me, ‘ Don’t you worry ; though 
of course it ’s awful hard to have Elizabeth 
go away. I know all about these parting 
sceneriesi ” 

“Very good! very good!” Doctor Baird 
murmured, while Betty laughed until the 
tears came, tears that were close to the 
surface. 

Scarcely had they finished breakfast when 
Edith, Sarah, May, Jane, Martha, and Ada 
came to walk to the station with her. They 
were sadly self-conscious, for they stood in 
great awe of the minister, and Betty had 
suddenly grown to be a personage. 

Her mother took her aside for the last few 
minutes, and when she left the room Betty 
said, — 

“ I ’ll remember. I ’ll never forget,” sobs 
breaking through the brave words. “ You 


AT LAST THE DAY! 39 

make believe, too, mother. Oh, I ’ll have to 
make believe so hard I ” She hurried down 
the steps and the little procession went 
down the street. Edith, as the best friend, 
had the post of honor next to Betty, the other 
girls walking sedately ahead. Miss Jane 
stood at her door for a last glance, waving 
a half-finished wash rag, and Betty threw 
kisses until they turned a corner. Elder 
Huggentugler, whom she loved next to Miss 
Jane, trotted across the street to say good- 
bye, and to tell her to be a good girl and get 
all the “ book lamin’ to be had,” the while 
pressing into her hand his favorite gift, a 
“ poke o’ peanuts.” 

Each girl had a last message, a last fer- 
vent request for a letter with minute details 
about everything at The Pines. Even out 
of the car window Betty had to scream 
promises, — 

“Yes, I’ll write soon. I won’t forget to 
tell you about all the girls. Write at once, 
Edith, and tell me about mother, and go in 
to see her every day. Be sure to have your 
pictures taken in a group.” 


40 


BETTY BAIRD 


The cars gave a jerk — another — and 
Betty was on her way to boarding school. 

While her father read the morning’s news, 
she leaned back with her eyes closed, dream- 
ing of The Pines. The teachers did not 
greatly engage her imagination ; it was those 
fascinating schoolgirls of whom she had 
read. She would be friends with them at 
once, those dear, wonderful girls ! The very 
first evening they would come to her room 
and talk and talk ; perhaps there would be 
a midnight feast and they would invite her. 
She would show them her books and her 
bead chain. If one of them wanted to bor- 
row the chain she would not be mean and 
refuse. Maybe she would show them the 
lilac dress, — that is, if they had nice ones 
of their own, for she would not flaunt her 
pretty dress before any girl with poor clothes. 
But might it not be more thrilling to conceal 
it until some reception and make a surprise 
out of it? Betty loved surprises, and de- 
cided to keep the wonderful new silk a 
secret. 

Doctor Baird’s amazement on seeing the 


AT LAST THE DAY! 


41 

great vine-covered stone building, — a fine ex- 
ample of Georgian architecture with charac- 
teristic Ionic columns and massive arched 
doorways, — surrounded by a park with the 
magnificent trees from which it took its 
name, was scarcely short of stupefaction. 
Betty had all the assurance of a girl who had 
learned by heart “ Four Years at Lakeside,” 
“ Patty at Hillsdale,” “ Good Times at Irving- 
ton,” and “ Rose Reeves of Belle Haven 
School.” She rejoiced that her surround- 
ings were even superior to those of the 
golden-haired Lillie Bent, who attended the 
most exclusive school in Chicago. She 
must write to Edith and tell her; she 
grieved to think that their ideal had been so 
low. She and her father did not talk much 
as they waited ; she was looking about her 
eagerly, while her father, not sustained by 
an acquaintance with her books, was in a 
state of astonishment. 

“ Don’t you think this must be like the 
Queen of England’s parlor, father.?*” asked 
Betty ; and she drew a deep breath. 

Her father looked around questioningly. 


42 


BETTY BAIRD 


To his simple eyes there seemed some- 
thing reprehensible in such size and ele- 
gance; and his ministerial mind irresistibly 
questioned how many missionaries could be 
sent to heathen lands by the superfluous 
luxury. Betty did not wait for an an- 
swer. 

“ How large is it, father, so I can tell 
Edith } ” 

“ It is about forty by fifty feet, I should 
say,” answered her father, glad to deal with 
something definite. 

“ Oh, Edith can’t tell by that,” protested 
his daughter. “ Can I say it is as large as 
our church auditorium ? ” 

“ Well, hardly, child. It is about the 
size of our Sunday-School room, though.” 

“ Oh, what will she say ! ” said Betty, tri- 
umphantly. “ Are these Gothic ceilings ? ” 

“ No, but they are remarkably fine.” 

“Oh, look at that chair! It is like one 
we have with the claw and ball feet.” 

“ That was your grandmother’s chair,” he 
replied, “ and she gave it to Cousin Eliza- 
beth.” 


AT LAST THE DAY! 43 

“ Is this a palace ? Oh, what grand rugs ! 
Why, there is n’t a carpet anywhere. I am 
going to ask mother to have rugs. It looks 
so nice and clean ; and you can slide on 
them ! ” she exclaimed ; and she almost meas- 
ured her length on the polished floor, as she 
walked towards the door to peep into the 
halls beyond. 

“ Come back, Elizabeth,” her father whis- 
pered. “ That is bad manners.” 

A tall, stately, silver-haired woman, with a 
gracious smile of welcome, came into the 
room. Though entering without haste she 
showed hospitable eagerness as she ap- 
proached the cousin whom she had not 
seen for many years. She greeted him 
affectionately, saying in a well modulated 
voice, — 

“ Dear, dear Cousin Tom, I am delighted 
to see you,” and, giving him both her hands, 
she turned him to the light. “ The same 
dear Cousin Tom. And this is my name- 
sake,” she continued, taking the child’s 
blushing face in her hands and kissing her 
warmly. “ I am glad to have you here, dear. 


44 


BETTY BAIRD 


You must feel perfectly at home. This must 
be your home, as your grandmother’s was 
mine for so many long, good years.” Betty 
felt more awed than she ever had before, and 
could not find a word to answer. 

“ So must queens talk and act,” she 
thought. Yet she was disappointed. Where 
were the elegant black satin dress with its 
flounces of lace, and the pearl necklace, and 
the diamond earrings ? She had never in her 
imagination pictured her preceptress without 
these essentials. And no gold bracelets 
either! 

A preceptress in the robes of a queen, as 
shown in her books of history, was really 
what she expected ; but since Cousin Eliza- 
beth was a queen in ordinary clothes, she was 
forced to acknowledge that the soft gray 
gown with its satisfying train just suited 
her. 

An hour’s conversation between the cousins 
followed, while Betty roamed around and in- 
spected the pictures and furnishings of 
the room. A church wedding necessitated 
Doctor Baird ’s immediate return to Weston, 


AT LAST THE DAY! 


45 

so, after seeing the building and especially 
the room which Betty was to occupy, and 
taking notes so that he could give a detailed 
description to his wife, he said, — 

“ I must now bid you farewell. Cousin 
Elizabeth, and to your competent care intrust 
my daughter, who will, I believe, prove not 
lacking in obedience to you.” With a few 
parting admonitions and a final kiss he took 
his departure, leaving Betty alone in her 
room, a thoroughly homesick girl. 

As it was during school hours, this part of 
the house was as still as an empty church, 
and never, in all her fourteen years, had 
Betty felt so utterly alone. The silent 
rooms around her, the greater ones down- 
stairs filled with strange people, and the 
outlook from her windows, beautiful be- 
yond words, yet unfamiliar and sad, accented 
her loneliness. The tears fell on her hands 
clasped on the window-sill, and there seemed 
to be nothing to make up for the little 
manse next to the old red brick church 
nestling among the great maples. At last 
she began to unpack, so she could dress for 


46 BETTY BAIRD 

dinner. The trunk had been filled to over- 
flowing with the things which, she believed, 
made up an unparalleled wardrobe. 

The new, really new, fine checked violet 
and white China silk, acknowledged by all 
who had seen it to be Miss Jane’s master- 
piece, had been very, very carefully packed 
in tissue paper. Its skirt was without orna- 
mentation and remarkably voluminous, for 
Miss Jane was really several years ahead of 
the fashions, in putting yards of unnecessary 
material in the skirt and sleeves. 

“ Best put in a good bit of stuff, for then 
it will be easier to make over,” she had 
said. 

The waist too was perfectly plain, save 
a sailor collar and cuffs to match, made out 
of some fine lace belonging to her mother. 
The color was so becoming that Miss Jane 
had forgotten her theories about children 
and cried out with delight, “ How laylock 
becomes her! And how it suits her fig- 
ger 1 ” turning her round and round ad- 
miringly; though there was no more to be 
seen of the childish figure than there is of a 


AT LAST THE DAY! 47 

lily stem, surrounded by its green enfolding 
leaves. 

One of her two school dresses was a pretty 
shepherd’s plaid, trimmed around the bottom 
with three rows of narrow black velvet, and 
with a yoke trimmed in the same way. She 
had a coat of the same material for fall wear. 
The other school dress was the made-over 
black silk, a trifle shiny, with Miss Jane’s 
“ stimulated vest ” of white and black silk, 
which was conceded by every one to be a 
flattering witness to her taste and origi- 
nality. This dress Betty decided to put on 
for her first dinner at The Pines. She 
looked longingly at the lilac, but that, she 
knew, she must not wear except on some 
great occasion, and this, being silk, seemed a 
fitting dress for her first appearance. Its 
skirt was at least two inches longer than 
girls of her age were then wearing, and Miss 
Jane had given as her reason for this extrav- 
agance that “she would sprout up like a bad 
weed, and then it wouldn’t be too long.” 

Her two hats were of good sailor shape, a 
becoming style which she particularly liked 


48 BETTY BAIRD 

because there was so little for her antics to 
displace. The last winter’s coat with new 
collar and cuffs of velvet would, they had 
decided, deceive even city eyes into believ- 
ing in its newness. Her muff was one 
her mother had for many years, and the 
mink was quite yellow, almost the color of 
Betty’s hair, but she felt much secret pride 
in it. Miss Jane supplied her with mittens, 
and she had her first pair of kid gloves. 
Her shoes were sensible. All these, with 
a few of her summer clothes, Betty un- 
packed, remembering that only last night her 
mother had put them in so carefully. It 
seemed a year ago ! 

She hugged her dearest books as she put 
them in place : her Bible that her mother had 
given her four years before, her Ossian 
poems, her Thomas a Kempis, and her old 
ballad book. Lillie Bent in “ Four Years at 
Lakeside ” was like a roommate ; she would 
understand how a girl feels on her first day 
away from home. Then came a worn copy 
of a collection of favorite poems and a quaint 
book which had belonged to her grandmother 


AT LAST THE DAY! 


49 

when a girl, in which was written, in small 
elegant writing : 

PRESENTED TO 

MISS ELIZABETH B. SEABURY, 

BY HER AFFECTIONATE BROTHER, 

ROBERT E. SEABURY. 

June 12, 1820. 

Looking down at her from their new abode, 
a handsome set of dark hanging shelves 
which formed an excellent frame for their 
rich reds, blues, and golds, these books gave 
her a home feeling and comforted her. Her 
eyes turned towards them constantly as 
she dressed for dinner, and more than once 
she darted over to them and kissed them 
hungrily. How understanding they looked ! 
How glad she was that she had them ! Her 
father had often spoken about books as 
friends, but she never knew how dear the very 
covers could be, and how their gold lettering 
could look out with true home eyes. 

She fingered caressingly the ivory comb, 
brush, and mirror which Cousin Elizabeth 
had sent to her last Christmas. They looked 
very nice on the mahogany dressing table, 
4 


BETTY BAIRD 


50 

but somehow they failed to stir her enthu- 
siasm. With them she placed Edith’s part- 
ing gift, a pin-cushion in the shape of a heart. 
A narrow little plait of light brown hair, tied 
with white glazed ribbon, an affecting gift 
from Ada, was laid carefully in her Bible. 
A painted pin tray, Martha’s votive offering 
and the work of her oldest sister, adorned 
very elegantly and daintily, Betty thought, 
the white-covered table. She pushed all the 
pins well to one side so that the wild roses 
could be seen. On her small writing table 
she put her pearl-handled penholder and a 
little gold pencil, once her grandfather’s, a 
box of fine note-paper, and a curious Japanese 
stamp box. The room contained two brass 
beds, so she was to have a roommate ! Oh, 
if she were only here now ! Betty had never 
before had such a queer feeling in her heart. 
She did n’t dare to look at her father’s and 
mother’s pictures. Would the dinner bell 
never ring.? 

Hoping for escape from her homesickness 
she turned to the window; and her beauty- 
loving eyes were held captive by the view. 


AT LAST THE DAY! 


51 

As far as vision could carry there were ven- 
erable trees, while off in the distance gleamed 
the Hudson, like a great silver belt, winding 
through the green waving shadows. 

The dinner bell rang at length, its cheerful 
peal bringing back to her with renewed force 
the long-cherished dreams of boarding-school 
life, its enchanting gayety, its delightful hub- 
bub of girls’ voices, and, above all, its true, 
loyal friendships. There, in the dining-room, 
were her new friends. Hopefully she ran 
down to them. 


V 


HER UNEXPECTED WELCOME 

A t the entrance of the dining-room 
Betty halted spellbound. The great 
size and beauty of the room, which, 
in her eyes, accustomed only to the soft light 
of oil, seemed magically illuminated by the 
artistic clusters of electric lights; the dark 
wood panelling, reaching nearly to the ceil- 
ing ; the rich, heavy mahogany furniture ; 
the great fireplace with high, dignified man- 
telpiece; the prevalent brilliancy of silver 
and cut glass and polished brass against 
the dark background ; all these dazzled and 
bewildered her. 

Forgetful of Miss Payne’s instructions to 
ask for Miss Greene’s table, she stood there 
in the middle of the high, broad doorway, a 
slight, old-fashioned figure that seemed to 
have strayed out of an old picture, her hands 
clenched behind her, her face, framed by the 



At the entrance of the dining-room Betty halted spellbound.” 

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UNEXPECTED WELCOME 53 

mop of tumbled yellow hair, white and quiv- 
ering, and her great, luminous eyes looking 
around helplessly and appealingly. Immov- 
able she stood there, until one of the teach- 
ers saw her, and sent a servant to show her 
to her place. Then, alone, she walked the 
length of the room. 

At her table she found seven girls, and 
a teacher whom she supposed to be Miss 
Greene. Fourteen curious eyes saw the 
“ new girl ” take her place with eagerness 
and evident delight. They saw a girl of 
fourteen, small for her age, dressed in a black 
silk dress with a simulated vest that gave 
her the appearance of a child masquerading 
in her mother’s clothes. Her bright, sensi- 
tive face was flushed, her dark eyes glowing 
with suppressed excitement, her delicate 
nostrils quivering. 

On her left sat a faultlessly dressed girl of 
her own age, with a cold pink and white 
complexion, clear blue eyes, light brown hair, 
a clean, high-bred face without a trace of 
good feeling. Betty had always made con- 
versation, being the leader of the home set. 


BETTY BAIRD 


54 

so, to facilitate acquaintance, she turned to 
the girl on her left and asked brightly, — 

“ How many pupils are there here? ” 

The girl turned and gave her a cold, dis- 
tant stare. 

“ Eighty,” she said after a pause, in an 
utterly colorless and impersonal manner. 
“ Why should the new girl address her ? ” 
it evidently meant. Betty felt the attitude, 
though she could not understand it. It was 
her first snub. 

“ Some girls cannot talk, and they have 
that stiff way. Edith is not much of a con- 
versationalist,” she commented to herself. 
She turned to a calm, pale-faced girl on her 
right and noticed that she too had a cold, 
distant look, and she did not feel encour- 
aged to go on. What nice hair all the girls 
had ! They all did it up the same way, with 
a big puff over the forehead. She thought 
of her own unruly mop and wished hers 
looked like theirs. Her natural manner 
won the admiration of Miss Greene, and 
Betty, after several helpless looks around the 
table, and frightened away by “ that look ” 


UNEXPECTED WELCOME 55 

which they all seemed to have, turned to 
her. 

“ Did you have a pleasant journey ? ” Miss 
Greene asked. 

“ Oh, yes, a delightful one,” she answered 
with ready enthusiasm, though in a voice 
which she hardly recognized as her own. 

“ I should have thought you would have 
found it quite warm, travelling in the heat of 
the day,” suggested Miss Greene. 

“ I did not mind the travelling, but I did 
find it warm work to unpack,” she replied. 

“ That is very wearing,” agreed Miss 
Greene. 

During this brief dialogue the other girls 
stared so unabashedly at Betty that Miss 
Greene, seeing her blushes, stopped out of 
sympathy. 

When dinner was finished Betty hurried 
to her room to hide her fast-flowing tears, 
and, throwing herself on the bed, cVied as if 
her poor little loving heart would break. 

“ How can girls be so stiff and cold and 
hard ? ” she said half-aloud, in grieved sur- 
prise. “ The Weston girls were never that 


BETTY BAIRD 


56 

way. Perhaps that is the trouble ; I am a 
stranger and do not understand their ways, 
and they are waiting to see what I am like. 
It may not have been dislike that made them 
stare at me in such an unfriendly manner. 
Maybe they only want to know more about 
me before they become friendly. I believe 
that is it. To-morrow they will be different. 
They will see that I am not stupid or mean, 
and they will soon be friendly.” She sat up 
and began to prepare for bed in a more hope- 
ful frame of mind. That night she slept 
the sleep of exhaustion and did not wake 
until the rising bell rang. 

The next morning she put on her black 
and white shepherd’s plaid dress which, by a 
happy chance, suited her and was the right 
length. She ate her breakfast in silence, 
making no attempt to open a conversation, 
though hoping that some of the girls would 
prove friendly and talk with her. 

The teacher had introduced the girl on 
her left, whose direct cold stare made her 
warm all over, as Caroline Wren; the pale- 
faced one on her right as Helen Dyke; just 


UNEXPECTED WELCOME 57 

beyond her was Miriam Kendall. Miriam 
was small, with a red-lipped mouth that 
pouted continually, while her slightly tilted 
nose and the dark arched brows gave some 
piquancy to an otherwise commonplace face. 
She did not possess “ that look ” to the 
same degree, so Betty turned to her rather 
hopefully. All the girls had high, assured 
voices. 

Miriam was older than Betty, and tossed 
her hair with the back of her hand, and 
pulled down her belt quite like a young lady. 
Caroline and Helen, as if determined to im- 
press on Betty that she was an intruder, 
carried on a conversation without the slight- 
est recognition of her presence between 
them. Never was there more perfect ignor- 
ing of a disagreeable object; and only the 
heat of her reddening face kept Betty from 
feeling as transparent as a ghost. 

“ Do you know your Virgil ? ” ask Caro- 
line, as they waited for some of the girls to 
finish their breakfast. 

“ Not a line,” responded Helen, indiffer- 
ently. 


BETTY BAIRD 


58 

Miss Greene, seeing their impertinence, 
addressed Betty pleasantly. 

“ Have you studied Latin, Miss Baird ? ” 

Betty gave her a grateful glance as she 
replied, with something of the old proud 
spirit, the spirit of the girl who has always 
been at the head of things, — 

“Yes, Miss Greene. I studied with my 
father. I have read through four books of 
Virgil.” 

Every girl at the table turned cool, unbe- 
lieving^ eyes at her ; then, each with her 
neighbor, they began to discuss her state- 
ment in an undertone, and with occasional 
glances which plainly indicated complete 
disbelief in the truth of it. 

“ She says she has read four books of 
Virgil,” said Caroline, as if announcing a 
peculiarity of a new species. 

“ I don’t believe it,” answered Miriam, in 
an undertone, as the signal was given to 
leave the table. Betty had only time to say 
emphatically, — 

“ You must take that back.” 

Miriam pushed by scornfully. 


UNEXPECTED WELCOME 59 

“ Evidently they don’t teach manners here,” 
continued Betty, indignantly, while Miriam, 
with her arm linked in Caroline’s, swept on, 
saying, so that Betty could hear her, — 

“ She’s a firebrand. You can tell where 
she came from by those outlandish dresses 
of hers.” Caroline tittered. 

“ Yes, and that hair looks as if it had 
never been combed.” 

“ How red she grew when she flared up 
at me ! ” said Miriam. “ Fair people can’t 
afford to redden so ; ” and her own dark face 
was very complacent. 

“ Who is she ? ” inquired Caroline. 

“ Oh, a poor Presbyterian preacher’s 
daughter, a sort of charity pupil, I think.” 

“ What a pity we must have her at our 
table, where every one is so nice,” regretted 
Caroline. 

“ Dorothy King won’t like it,” said Helen 
Dyke, who walked ahead. 

“She certainly won’t,” replied Miriam, 
sharply. “ She can’t bear country gawks.” 

Betty, who was compelled to walk close to 
them in the regular march from the room, 


6o 


BETTY BAIRD 


heard every word of this conversation. It 
not only enlightened her as to the meaning 
of “ that look,” but it was so utterly un- 
expected that she did not once think of 
replying. 

Tears ran down her hot cheeks as she sat 
by her window. So far as she could tell all 
the girls were alike, and all hated her. She 
could not comfort herself with the thought 
that every bright girl at school has a jealous 
enemy, for these disliked her because she 
was not their kind. She was an intruder 
and had invaded their table. She had, her- 
self, enough schoolgirl clannishness to know 
what that means, for she had more than once 
made eyes secretly at Edith when some un- 
desirable girl tried to share their walk home 
from school. 

She had been too unhappy to eat much 
breakfast, and now, feeling hungry, she 
thought of the chocolates Edith had given 
her. Tears flowed faster as she remembered 
how she had put them away for her new 
friends ; and she could hardly bite them for 
sobs. The poor lonely child sat there for a 


UNEXPECTED WELCOME 6i 


long time, weeping and munching her candy. 
Suddenly she sat upright. One thing must 
be attended to at once. That Kendall girl 
must take back her insulting words. How 
could she make her do it, though, when she 
would not even look at her ? Her favorite 
reading of the old fighting days suggested a 
way. She could send her a challenge ! She 
wiped her eyes, hurried to her writing desk, 
and quickly wrote in her large, upright hand : 

Miss Baird feels grievously insulted by Miss 
Kendall’s spiteful observations on the reading of 
Virgil at the breakfast table, and demands redress 
in the form of an apology before the same company. 
If refused, she hereby challenges said Miriam 
Kendall to a competitive reading of Virgil. 

This made her feel much brighter. Barely 
had she finished, when she received a message 
from Miss Payne to come to her room. 


VI 


THE CHALLENGE 

I N response to Miss Payne’s request 
Betty knocked at her door, and a pre- 
occupied voice said in answer, “Come 

in!” 

In a beautiful sunny room lined with 
books and pictures, at a large mahogany 
writing desk strewn with papers, sat her 
cousin, who looked up absently as Betty 
walked towards her. 

“ Oh, you, little Elizabeth ? I am glad 
you have come. I was so busy I had al- 
most forgotten you. Don’t tell your father,” 
she added, laughing. 

“Father wouldn’t believe anything against 
you. Cousin Elizabeth,” the girl replied 
warmly, remembering the reverence with 
which her name was always spoken at 
home. Something of this faith was com- 
municated to Miss Payne and gave a twinge 


THE CHALLENGE 63 

to her guilty conscience, and determined her, 
for the present at least, to give Betty her 
undivided attention. Miss Payne was a very 
busy woman, who not only conducted a 
large school but also wrote and lectured 
and attended to numerous club duties. 

“Your father has told me about your 
studies. You are, I judge, ready for the 
class in which Miriam and Caroline are, 
all girls a year or two older than you. I 
am not surprised to find you so far ad- 
vanced in Latin, knowing your father’s love 
for it. Let me hear you read.” She gave 
Betty a fat little volume of Virgil. “ Re- 
markable!” she exclaimed, when Betty had 
finished, and Betty started with pleasure and 
surprise. “ You could go a class or two 
higher in Latin. How like Cousin Tom I ” 

“Yes, but. Cousin Elizabeth, I don’t know 
a thing about geometry, and I don’t under- 
stand algebra, and I hate arithmetic,” said 
Betty. Miss Payne smiled sympathetically. 

“Of course you do; we all do. Arithmetic 
is one of the necessaries of life, and we nat- 
urally prefer the luxuries,” 


BETTY BAIRD 


64 

During this interview Betty was under- 
going an examination of which she was 
wholly unconscious. Miss Payne was a 
student of girl nature; so while Betty read 
aloud a little poem, her cousin was observing 
her minutely. 

“Dear little old-fashioned thing! I didn’t 
know that style had survived,” she mused. 
“ I wonder how she will affiliate with 
my fashionable set. She is probably the 
brightest girl in school, but that fact won’t 
endear her to the others. I must tell Miss 
Greene to watch, and not to allow the girls 
to be overbearing. But I ’ll not protect her. 
She has spirit, courage, self-confidence, a 
nimble wit, alertness, and evidently large 
imaginative faculties. It will be interest- 
ing to watch her development. There is 
nothing to criticise in her manner except, 
perhaps, a too great enthusiasm, — a contrast 
to my cool, self-possessed pupils. She reads 
like a scholar — that’s Tom; she stands and 
sits like a lady — that ’s her mother. There 
is, however, something boyish about her 
which will get her into scrapes. She has 


THE CHALLENGE 65 

beautiful cameo-like features, though at 
first one does not notice them, because one 
is conscious only of her great beautiful eyes 
and mass of pale, wild hair. What a mop ! 
I must try to smooth it out. Such a strong 
chin for a child — like her grandmothers. 
It is strange to see that chin again on a 
child. I *11 not coddle her.” No doubt 
Miss Payne thought she could coddle. 

“ How do you like your schoolmates ? ” 
she inquired, aroused from her study of 
the girl by the completion of the poem. 

Betty hesitated and looked down uneasily, 
for she could not tell the incident at the 
breakfast table without feeling like a tell- 
tale, and only that incident could explain the 
strength of her dislike for her companions. 
Miss Payne saw the disturbance in her face, 
and surmised that Betty had already had 
trouble of some kind. 

‘T have n’t talked with them much, Cousin 
Elizabeth,” she said evasively, playing with 
the book of poems. 

“ Of course not, but I thought you might 
have a few impressions.” 


66 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ Impressions in plenty,” exclaimed Betty, 
with a warmth not flattering to the girls. 

“ My child, I want to help you to accom- 
modate yourself to your new surroundings,” 
said Miss Payne, mechanically arranging the 
papers on her desk ; for she was disturbed 
by the evident fact that her namesake had 
not been graciously received. “You have 
always lived in a village,” she continued, 
“ where every one knew you and where you 
have had things very much your own way. 
The girls here have had a different kind of 
life. They are more mature in many re- 
spects, and less in others. You will find 
them very self-possessed and inclined to be 
critical.” 

“ Oh, yes, I have discovered that,” an- 
swered Betty, as she drew herself up. 

“ Now don’t be sensitive, Elizabeth, for 
nothing in the world will make you so mis- 
erable. Don’t yield to it for a moment — 
flee from it. Forget yourself by thinking of 
others. As far as possible take these girls as 
they are. Don’t analyze them ; don’t think 
much about how they treat you. You will 


THE CHALLENGE 67 

find your friends by and by.” Miss Payne 
laughed and shook her head. “Oh, if you 
young people could or would profit by the 
experience of others!” 

The luncheon bell saved Betty the neces- 
sity of replying, but she thought, “Take that 
Kendall girl as she is? Well, I guess not!” 
and she ran upstairs to get the challenge. 

As she took her seat at the table she put 
the challenge at Miriam’s plate; and Miriam, 
coming in later, picked it up curiously and 
turned it over, wondering what it was and 
who had sent it. 

“ I don’t know the writing,” she said to 
Caroline. 

“Oh, open it, Miriam,” exclaimed Caro- 
line, petulantly. “You always make such a 
fuss.” 

Miriam did open it, and as her eyes caught 
the words she grew scarlet, and concentrated 
scorn settled on her darkening face. 

“ The impudent thing ! ” she muttered, 
darting a withering glance at Betty, who, as 
far as her trembling fingers and fluttering 
heart would allow, was eating, apparently 


68 


BETTY BAIRD 


deaf and blind to the storm gathering 
around her. It was not an easy situation, 
for every girl at the table, she well knew, 
would side with Miriam ; and even at that 
natural age for eagerly-sought martyrdom, 
Betty’s lot that hour was one to make even 
a stout heart quake. 

Miss Greene perceived trouble, and re- 
quested Miriam to put away the letter, which 
she was beginning to show to her neighbors. 
Sullenly she put it into its envelope, and 
Miss Greene, suspecting that Betty was the 
storm centre, tried to draw attention from 
her by brisk questions; for by that time 
every girl at the table had had it communi- 
cated to her, in some such mysterious way 
as that which warns insects of the approach 
of an enemy, that the new girl had done 
something atrocious for which she deserved, 
and would certainly receive, swift punish- 
ment at their hands. 

After this zestful luncheon Miriam, Caro- 
line, Helen, and several others of the table 
set hurried to Miriam’s room for a council of 


war. 


THE CHALLENGE 69 

“ What is the matter, Miriam? What has 
the new girl done ? ” inquired Mary Living- 
stone. “ At the table you turned all the 
colors of the spectrum, though your counte- 
nance was not a rainbow of promise. You 
were a perfect thunder-cloud.” 

She was allowed to get through this sen- 
tence, for Mary Livingstone was — well, she 
was Mary Livingstone, not only a senior and 
one of the best scholars in the school, but 
one of the Livingstones. 

“Just wait until you read this thing,” 
almost screamed Miriam, as she thrust the 
challenge into Mary’s hand. 

Mary read aloud with peculiar intensity : 

“ ‘ Miss Baird ! ’ Ah, so that is the Pader- 
ewski girl’s name.” (“ Go on, go on ! ” the 
eager bevy cried in chorus.) “ ‘ Miss Baird 
feels grievously insulted by Miss Kendall’s 
spiteful observations on the reading of 
Virgil — * so that is the way the wind 
blows — ‘ at the breakfast table, and demands 
redress — ’ redress, good word ! ” (“ Her 

effrontery,” muttered Miriam.) — in the 
form of an apology — ’ good for her ! ‘ — 


BETTY BAIRD 


70 

before the same company. If refused, she 
hereby challenges said Miss Kendall — ’ oh, 
ho, little monkey ” (“ Impertinent monkey ! ” 
said Miriam.) — to a competitive reading 
of Virgil.’" 

“Well," breathed Mary, when she had 
finished, as she sank, apparently exhausted, 
into a chair, “ that is the most novel piece of 
literature I have ever read." Looking up 
from her low seat she laughed, characteris- 
tically amused. “You should see yourselves 
standing around like conspirators, and all for 
one little country girl who has taken a me- 
diaeval form of demanding justice." 

“ She ’s a fool," said Miriam, spitefully, 
stamping her foot. 

“ Oh, perhaps, but a fool could hardly get 
up a note like this. It is on Tiffany paper, 
the writing not half bad, not a word is mis- 
spelled, and every small requirement is ful- 
filled. I doubt if she is fourteen. I am 
nearly seventeen, and I could not write a 
better note. It takes breeding too ! " 

“ Mary, you are always generous," spoke 
up a girl who had been the quietest of the 


THE CHALLENGE 


71 

group, a girl of fifteen or sixteen, small and 
very pretty. 

“ Not generous, Do-rothy, but I always 
have an irresistible impulse to take the 
other side. The new girl is young, alone, 
and evidently clever. There is something 
ingenuous about the letter.” 

“ She is unpleasant to me,” Caroline said, 
her rose and cream face showing that she 
had met an antipathetic nature. “ I simply 
can’t endure heroics.” 

Dorothy and Mary exchanged swift 
glances. 

“ I can easily believe it, Caroline,” Mary 
answered dryly. 

“Little upstart! Coming here dressed 
like a guy, and sending such a letter to one 
of us!” scornfully said Jessie Bentworth, 
usually called Jess. 

“ Did you ever see such hair ? ” asked 
Helen Dyke. 

“Yes,” said Caroline, disgustedly; “and 
the way she tried to push herself in the very 
first meal ! ” 

“Well, we’ll just freeze Paderewski out,” 


BETTY BAIRD 


72 

said Dorothy, languidly. All nodded assent 
except Mary, who said, — 

“ She is countrified, but I like her spunk, 
and I shall take more interest in her than 
I usually do in new girls. But it does seem 
doubtful about the four books of Virgil.” 

“Yes, that is decidedly fishy,” said Jess, 
making a wry face. 

“ 1 certainly shall take some interest in 
her,” said Dorothy, in her soft, bored voice. 
“ I need amusement.” 

“ She ’s perfectly horrid,” said Miriam, 
frowning. 

Word of the challenge soon reached Miss 
Greene. The humor of the situation ap- 
pealed strongly to her; but she felt that 
it would be neither wise nor kind to pass it 
over without ascertaining the motive which 
prompted Betty to act in this romantic 
manner, — whether it was pure romance or a 
sense of insulted dignity and the belief that 
this was the only way to assert her claim to 
justice. Miss Greene was the soul of fair 
play, and her admiration for Betty was in- 
creased since she had found her sensitive as 


THE CHALLENGE 


73 

well as courageous ; for it took courage to 
face a table full of hostile girls and bring 
the matter to a quick issue, rather than wait 
to ingratiate herself little by little, as an 
older and more worldly-wise spirit would 
have done. So she sent for Betty, who re- 
sponded with alacrity; for she felt that Miss 
Greene was a friend. 

Miss Greene’s room was enough like 
Doctor Baird’s study to put Betty at her 
ease at once, while the calm brown eyes 
gave her a feeling of home love and comfort, 
— a feeling she had not had since coming to 
The Pines. She looked intently at the 
books, and Miss Greene asked her if she 
liked to read. 

“Yes, Miss Greene,” she answered. 
Though usually gifted with too great an 
abundance of words she felt strangely 
tongue-tied. She might cry if she uttered 
another word, for the reaction was coming 
on after the high-strung day. 

“ I have a nice edition of Stevenson’s 
‘The Child’s Garden of Verses;’” and Miss 
Greene handed it to Betty. 


74 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ It is very pretty,” Betty answered, look- 
ing at the cover, and turning the leaves. 

“ I like the way she handles a book,” Miss 
Greene reflected. “ No moistening of her 
thumb or careless bending of the cover. 
Evidently, though, she is not much of a 
reader, for she seems very indifferent.” 

“ I have not read it,” Betty said, as she 
returned the book. 

“ What poetry do you like ? Or don’t 
you care for it.J^ Many of the girls here do 
not.” 

“Not like poetry!” and Betty’s eyes 
shone. “ I love ‘ Flodden Field,’ ‘ The Last 
Minstrel,’ ‘The Eve of St. Agnes,’ ‘ Hohenlin- 
den,’ ‘Percy and Douglas,’ and — and — oh, 
lots of others ; ” and she stopped for breath. 

“ Oh, they are the ones I love too I ” 
exclaimed Miss Greene, “ and ‘ Sennacherib,’ 
and ‘Young Lochinvar.’” 

“ Yes, and ‘ The Skeleton in Armor.’ They 
are all in an old reader of father’s. I know 
them all by heart,” she exclaimed, her face 
lit up with enthusiasm. “ And this too, — 

“ ‘ At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour.’ ” 


THE CHALLENGE 


75 

Then Miss Greene quoted, her eyes dark 
with the spirit of the gay old strife, — 

“ ‘ Fair stood the wind for France,^ 

When we our sails advance, ’ ” 

and the two in concert triumphantly recited 
“ Agincourt ” to the end. 

“Just those names make me cold all over, 

“ ‘ Beaumont and Willoughby 
Bare them right doughtily, 

Ferrers and Fanhope,’ ’’ 

said Betty, shrugging her shoulders together 
with delight. 

“ I know,” said Miss Greene, “ for I thrill 
every time I read — 

“ ‘ There was a sound of revelry by night. 

And Belgium’s capital had gathered then 
Her Beauty and her Chivalry.’ ” 

“ The old ballads are more shivery,” said 
Betty. “ They just ‘ ha’nt ’ me, as our old 
cook Katy says ; but Ossian is my favorite.” 

“ Ossian ! ” exclaimed Miss Greene, look- 
ing at the child in surprise. “ He always 
seemed gloomy to me.” 

“ I don’t know why I like him. Father 
says he is sentimental ; but it is all so gray 


BETTY BAIRD 


76 

and grieving, and everything is solemn and 
large and grand. I love old, old things that 
don’t happen nowadays.” 

“ ‘ . . . old, unhappy, far-off things. 

And battles long ago,’ ” 

suggested Miss Greene, lifting her eyebrows 
inquiringly. 

“ Oh, that just explains what I like about 
Ossian and the ballads,” said Betty, clasping 
her hands delightedly. 

“ We certainly have had an hour with the 
poets,” said Miss Greene, smilingly, “ and I 
feel we must be friends, having been intro- 
duced by the very best people, — by Drayton 
and Byron, for instance, — but in my enthusi- 
asm I must not forget to tell you why I sent 
for you.” She hesitated. “ I know about 
the challenge.” 

Betty reddened, but spoke up vigorously. 
“ Was n’t that a mean, contemptible thing 
for that Kendall girl to say ? ” she de- 
manded. 

“ It was,” assented Miss Greene, “ but I 
am going to ask you to let it drop. I shall 
talk with Miriam, and she will understand 


THE CHALLENGE 


71 

that you are doing it at my request. I shall 
tell her a few plain facts.” 

“ I will do just whatever you ask, because 

— ” and the child blushed and hesitated, for 
she did n’t know how to say it, “ — because 
you have made me so happy. I thought I 
should never be happy again.” 

Miss Greene knew how brief childish 
troubles are, but she also knew that they are 
bitter, and she showed her sympathy by 
patting the little brown hand as she said, — 
“ Things will soon brighten.” 

Betty thought “ things ” were all rose- 
colored as she left Miss Greene’s room. If 
troubles never come singly, — and they cer- 
tainly had come in battalions to her lately, 

— she found that joys, too, come in troops. 


VII 


A ROOMMATE 


"'i Betty went lightly into her room, her 



face still bright from her good time 


^ with Miss Greene, she saw a pretty, 
refined girl of her own age sitting in a de- 
jected attitude, looking out of the window. 
Her eyes opened wide with surprise ; then 
a radiant smile came to her face. Some one 
was calling; how perfectly grand! Joy- 
ously she went up to the girl, just as one of 
the teachers came in and said — 

“ I have brought you a roommate. Miss 
Elizabeth Baird of Weston, Miss Lois Byrd 
of Baltimore.” 

“ Oh, good I I am too glad for anything,” 
cried the delighted girl, and seized the 
stranger s hand. “ I have been awfully 
lonely.” 

The new girl smiled shyly and pleasantly 
in reply, and the teacher left them to become 
better acquainted. 


A ROOMMATE 


79 

“ Has your trunk come ? ” inquired Betty, 
looking around. 

“ It is behind the door.” Betty felt com- 
forted by the sound of the girl’s sweet voice. 

“ The days have been so long and so si- 
lent. I shall rearrange my things so you 
can have half of the closet. When I put up 
my duds I was not sure I should be so for- 
tunate as to have a roommate. Luckily I 
don’t need many hooks.” 

“ Maybe you won’t think you are fortunate 
when you know me better,” said Lois. 

“ Oh, anybody would be better than to be 
alone, but you — ” and Betty shook her head 
appreciatively. She was too pleased and 
excited to sit down, and was walking aimlessly 
around, when she noticed on the dressing 
table a copy of “ Little Women,” which Lois 
had carried to read on the cars. 

“ ‘ Little Women ! ’ Oh, 1 love it ! ” she 
exclaimed. 

Lois’s eyes grew bright. “ So do I. I 
read and reread it,” she answered. 

“ I am so glad you brought yours,” said 
Betty. “ I had lent mine to a girl at home. 


8o 


BETTY BAIRD 


and I could n’t bear to take it from her before 
she had finished it, for it is simply awful 
not to know whether it turns out happy or 
not. Have you ever read ‘ Four Years at 
Lakeside ’ ? ” 

“ Oh, yes. Is n’t it lovely ! ” 

“ Perfectly lovely,” answered Betty. 

“ And was n’t it awful the way Lillie Bent 
was treated at first by the other girls ? ” 

“ Well, since coming here I can sympa- 
thize with her. You wouldn’t believe girls 
could be so mean as they have been to 
me.” 

“ Oh, tell me ! ” exclaimed Lois, rapturously 
and admiringly. 

Betty too sat down by the long, low case- 
ment window, and with much energy and 
telling gesticulation told her about Miriam 
and the challenge. It would be impossible 
to find a more interested listener, and the 
number of the “ How means ! ” showed an 
intellectual and moral sympathy not wasted 
on Betty who, when she had finished, said, — 

“ I ’ll ask Miss Greene to allow you to sit 
at our table, for there is room ™ but you 


A ROOMMATE 


might find some nice girls at one of the others, 
though they all look alike to me. 

“ I want to sit with you,” said Lois, decid- 
edly. “ Besides, if we are together we won’t 
feel snubbed.” 

“ I certainly want you, for ‘ A gay com- 
panion is a w^agon to him that is awearied 
by the way.’ These girls have wearied me.” 

To Lois’s look of surprise and question 
she said, — 

“ Don’t be surprised, for I am always quot- 
ing. Even father could n’t break me of it. I 
saw that in a book last week, and I have 
thought of it ever since.” 

“ But I’m not ‘gay,’” replied Lois. 

“ Oh, I don’t like gay people really. Don’t 
you remember that Lillie Bent was ‘grave 
and sweet ’ ? Last night I saw a falling star 
and, oh, I wished for a roommate, and it has 
come true,” she said, clapping her hands. 

“ I never got a wish in time for a falling 
star,” replied Lois, “ but I am always saying 
the same thing with some one else.” 

“ I say ‘ Shakespeare, ’ ” said Betty. 

“ I say ‘ Milton,’ ” said Lois. “ But I think 
6 


82 


BETTY BAIRD 


I ’ll unpack now, so I ’ll have it off my 
mind,” she continued. 

“ I ’ll help. Together we can unpack in a 
jiffy,” said Betty, as she flew at the strap, 
which, after much tugging, they unfastened. 

“ Oh, what lovely dresses ! ” she exclaimed, 
as they brought out dress after dress of ex- 
quisite pattern. “ I am sure there is not 
another girl in the school with so many 
beautiful things.” 

“ I am glad you like them, but I think I 
have too many,” added Lois, seeing Betty’s 
scantily furnished hooks. She had conceived 
for Betty one of those sudden friendships 
not uncommon in girls of her age ; but this 
was for her the first and enduring one. 
Betty felt the greatest enthusiasm in return, 
and thought she had the loveliest roommate 
in the school. 

“ It is just as well to have plenty here,” re- 
plied Betty. “ Do you know, I never thought 
at all about clothes, but since coming here 
and hearing the girls talk about my dresses 
(and I was so glad over them too!), and 
even disliking me because my things are 


A ROOMMATE 83 

not stylish (that is the only word they seem 
to know), I have thought more about my 
clothes than in all the years of my life. It 
makes more difference to those girls whether 
your dress is an inch too long than whether 
you know your lessons.” 

“ Perfectly horrid,” said Lois. 

“ I never have been envious,” said Betty, 
“but I believe I am a weenty-teenty so of 
those beautiful dresses. Nearly a whole 
closet full and not one made over ! ” 

“ I have always wanted a made-over dress,” 
said Lois. 

“ Is that so ? I ’ll lend you one of mine, 
for we are about the same size.” 

“ Oh, thank you. I ’d be so pleased.” 

“You’ll soon see what they are, — half a 
yard too narrow, inches too short, with ruffles 
to piece it out, braid to hide the seams. 
They have to be so sponged and pressed 
that they never have that delicious new smell 
and feel.” 

“ Oh, what a face ! ” exclaimed Lois, as 
Betty finished with a grimace. Lois had 
never met any one so interesting. “Your 


BETTY BAIRD 


84 

mouth looked actually a yard long,” she 
finished, with a laugh. 

“Only a yard.? Are you sure it wasn’t 
two?” 

“ Only one,” Lois insisted. 

“ I am sure it was two — well, anyway, it 
is an open question ; ” and the two girls 
laughed delightedly over the pun. “ If it is 
that long, I suppose I shall have to keep say- 
ing ‘ prunes and prisms ’ for a while.” 

Having finished their unpacking they 
dressed for dinner, and, while waiting for the 
bell, Lois saw Betty’s picture of her mother. 

“ How beautiful it must be to have a 
mother! Mine died before I knew her,” she 
said. 

Betty stood aghast. Never knew her 
mother 1 She had never before met such a 
poor bereaved girl. She stood staring at her 
for a moment, then took up the picture, — the 
picture of the one who never seemed far 
away, so pervading was her love. She was 
grieved and dazed for an instant, then 
quickly gave the picture to Lois and said, 

“ Let her be your mother too; she has a 


A ROOMMATE 


85 

heart like — like — ” and her gesture indi- 
cated the universe. “ Most mothers have so 
many little girls, and mine has only me, and 
she could love so fhany.” 

Lois took the picture and kissed it tenderly. 

“ I must never make you regret your kind- 
ness,” she said, and turned away to hide her 
tears, while Betty grew so energetic that she 
nearly tore down the wardrobe in her pre- 
tense of arranging things. 

The dinner bell sounded as Betty was 
indulging her favorite pastime of tying hair- 
ribbons expertly by making the black bow 
on Lois’s dark hair a little nattier. 

“Now there, that’s just right,” she said, 
giving it a finishing pat. 

As they walked downstairs, arm in arm, 
Lois whispered, — 

“Point out the horrid girl who said that 
about you. What is her name.?^” 

“ Miriam Kendall,” replied Betty, also in 
a whisper, “but we’ll call her Orpheus be- 
cause, don’t you know, he is the god with the 
lyre, and by twisting it enough we can make 
it ‘ liar.’ ” 


86 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ Splendid ! ” exclaimed Lois. 

“ We can talk all we please about Orpheus 
and no one will know what we are talking 
about. So when I say at the table, ‘ There is 
Orpheus,’ you will know I mean that girl,” 
explained Betty. 

As they took their places together at the 
table — for Lois had been given Caroline’s 
place — every eye was fastened on Betty who, 
nevertheless, felt perfectly at ease, for now 
she had a good friend and supporter. Sus- 
tained by Lois’s sweet and understanding 
sympathy, she had no self-consciousness, and 
took her place at the table with a grace pe- 
culiarly her own. She did things, not as one 
who watched to see how others did them, but 
as a born leader, and her self-confidence was 
the outgrowth not of ignorance but of habit. 

Miss Greene introduced Lois to the differ- 
ent members of the table. 

“She’s my kind,” whispered Caroline to 
Miriam. 

“We must see that she doesn’t become 
intimate with that hateful thing,” snapped 
Miriam. 


A ROOMMATE 


87 


“ The duellist,” giggled Caroline. 

“ Good ! ” applauded Miriam. 

Caroline turned her cold glance towards 
Betty and scrutinized her as one would an 
inanimate object, while Miriam tossed her 
head contemptuously. 


VIII 

THE DUEL AFTER ALL 

“ I AETTY, you have only an hour to 
I ^ prepare for your Latin class. Do 
stop fiddling with those books and 
get at your lesson,” pleaded Lois. 

“Oh, don’t bother me, Lois. I am put- 
ting these books of poetry together.” 

“ Well, it seems very foolish for you to be 
so indifferent when you know how much de- 
pends on this first class. I heard the girls 
say last evening that Miriam was going 
around getting all the best Latin scholars 
in the school to help her prepare her lesson. 
Jessie Bentworth said you will look pretty 
foolish when you get up thinking you can 
read Virgil ; and Miriam said, ‘ Let ’s all 
snicker when she sits down.’ ” 

“ Let them snicker — their snickering won’t 
hurt anybody,” said Betty, lightly. “ I am 
going to dress now, for appearances count 


THE DUEL — AFTER ALL 89 

more than anything else here,” she added 
rather bitterly. “ Heigh-ho ! Well, since 
you say I must change my dress, I ’ll do so, 
though I think this black silk is good enough 
for anybody.” 

“ No, you must put on that white pique 
suit, and I am going to fix your hair; but 
just read your lesson over once, that ’s a 
dear,” said Lois, coaxingly. 

“ Oh, Lois, you bother me to death. I 
don’t want to be smart, I want to be pretty,” 
replied Betty, teasingly. 

“ I can’t understand why you are so obsti- 
nate about it. I am just trembling like a leaf,” 
said Lois. 

“ ‘ Ho, why dost thou shiver and shake, Gatfer Grey, 
And why does thy nose look so blue ? ’ ” 

sang Betty, provokingly. “ Now come, ar- 
range my hair, that ’s a good girl, and don’t 
worry about the Latin part of it. You ’ll see.” 

“ Yes, I ’ll see you fizzle. Well, if you 
do I ’ll die of mortification. I almost quar- 
relled with Jessie Bentworth last evening 
over it all. They are just dying to have 
you fail.” 


90 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ Indeed ! This certainly seems to be a 
very grave occasion, judging by the condi- 
tion you are all in ; ” and Betty laughed. 

Nevertheless, in spite of her indifferent 
manner, she awaited the hour with impa- 
tience. She had challenged Miriam to a 
reading before the girls of their own table 
only, but as that had been prevented by 
Miss Greene, the result was that the first 
Virgil class would be practically a duel be- 
tween the two before the whole school, which, 
as Betty recognized, would vindicate her all 
the more completely. 

There was an air of expectation through- 
out the school, for word of the challenge had 
spread among the pupils and they were all 
agog to see the impertinent “ new girl ” put 
down. Even Miss Payne, ignorant of the 
cause, felt the suppressed excitement when 
she came into the main school-room, where, 
on a slight elevation, the Latin class recited. 
If it had been in one of the smaller class- 
rooms the contest would have been witnessed 
by few. Now, however, every girl in the 
school would see Betty’s discomfiture, for it 


THE DUEL — AFTER ALL 91 

was generally believed that she had boasted 
unwarrantably at the table and that her 
meagre acquirements would soon be evident 
to all. Even those who were unfriendly to 
Miriam stood by her and wished her luck in 
her recitation. 

Lois, whose seat was near the rostrum 
where she could hear every word, was white 
with excitement. At first Betty was not 
anxious, for her cousin did not seem half 
as terrifying as her strict father; but when 
the recitation had actually begun she had 
something akin to stage-fright. She herself 
became like poor Gaffer Grey, though it was 
not apparent to the onlookers except by her 
extreme paleness. 

Mary Livingstone was the only girl ac- 
quainted with the whole story who was neu- 
tral. What Betty had said seemed to be 
pure boasting, yet the evident truth and 
reliability of the new girl puzzled her, and 
she decided to withhold judgment until after 
the recitation. She was eagerly alive to the 
excitement of the contest, and pushed her 
books aside to listen more at ease. 


BETTY BAIRD 


92 

Even the usually indifferent Dorothy King 
could not keep fascinated eyes from the Vir- 
gil class, and she and Mary whispered and 
looked and whispered again. Some of the 
pupils in the rear of the room took seats 
farther front in order to hear better, and 
others actually stood up when the recitations 
began. A strange, tense, breathless silence 
filled the room. 

Several girls had recited more or less in- 
differently, and the feeling of impatience 
was growing more intense, when Miss Payne 
called on Miriam to recite. 

“ Now,” said Betty to herself, “ we ’ll see 
what that girl knows about it,” and she 
watched her eagerly. 

The eyes of the listeners shifted from 
Miriam to Betty and back to Miriam, watch- 
ing to see how Betty was taking Miriam’s 
reading. With her closed book on her lap, 
her forefinger keeping the place, Betty sat 
like a marble statue, though her heart 
sounded to her like a bass drum. 

“ I don’t believe she can read it at all, for 
she is n’t even looking into her book,” whis- 


THE DUEL — AFTER ALL 93 

pered Caroline to Jessie, who was mockingly 
watching Betty. Nothing but sheer stupid- 
ity could make a girl act so, they thought. 

As was Miriam’s custom she stumbled and 
stuttered through the lines, though on this 
day she did better than usual because of the 
help she had received. She knew the whole 
school would be watching the contest ; and 
at the end she sat down with something of 
a flourish, for she had outdone herself. 

Miss Payne suggested some changes in 
her translation, adding, — 

“You did unusually well to-day, Miriam. 
That is a good beginning for the new school 
year.” 

Little suspecting how much she contrib- 
uted to the dramatic action of the moment, 
Miss Payne next called on Betty, who sprang 
up, tossing her hair back from her forehead, 
and prepared to read. 

At the sound of her clear, sweet voice, 
necks were craned eagerly and every eye was 
fastened on her. She stood there, a slight 
graceful girl in a simple white pique dress, 
her face almost as white as the dress, in con- 


BETTY BAIRD 


94 

trast with which the dark beautiful eyes 
appeared the more remarkable. Her thick 
flaxen hair was parted in the middle and 
hung in the roundhead style worn by much 
younger girls, an arrangement that gave a 
sweetness and a distinction to her face that 
was not lost on the pupils and made Miss 
Payne start with surprise. In her belt was 
a large red rose, stuck there at the last mo- 
ment by Lois and unnoticed by Betty until 
she was in the class. 

As she read the blood came back to her 
cheeks, and her interested expression showed 
that in the lines she loved she had forgotten 
the hostile, critical faces around her. 

She read through the long lesson without 
a single correction from her teacher, her 
voice clear and melodious as if rendering 
sweet and familiar music. When she had 
finished. Miss Payne exclaimed enthusiasti- 
cally, — 

“ Excellent ! That is one of the best 
translations I have ever heard. It shows 
your fathers thorough training. Doctor 
Baird is one of the great Latin scholars of 


THE DUEL — AFTER ALL 95 

our country,” she explained to the girls, “and 
I believe that his daughter’s example will be 
an inspiration to you all.” 

“Thank you, Miss Payne,” said Betty, and, 
turning slightly, she added, “ I have read four 
books of Virgil,” and she looked deliberately 
and haughtily at Miriam. 

Great was the excitement in the school- 
room when she sat down, and such was the 
buzz of conversation that Miss Payne was 
compelled to ring her bell sharply for order. 

Jessie Bent worth leaned over to Miriam, 
and asked wickedly, — 

“ Shall w^e snicker, Miriam ? ” 

Miriam only scowled in reply. 

When Betty went to her room after 
school, Lois jumped up from her chair to 
meet her, threw her arms around her, and 
hugged her ecstatically. 

“ Oh, it was glorious, glorious ! I am so 
proud I don’t know what to do.” 

“Ho, where’s Gaffer Grey now.^^” asked 
Betty. 

“ Oh, do sit down now, Betty, and don’t 
walk around like a caged lion, while I tell 


BETTY BAIRD 


96 

you everything,” begged Lois, unable her- 
self to keep still for a second. “ Every girl 
in that room listened. You should have 
seen them. Mary Livingstone clapped 
softly when you finished and said, ‘ I see 
she knew what she was talking about,’ and 
she and Miss King nodded and laughed 
when Orpheus made such a fizzle. And I 
heard Dorothy say you were mighty pretty.” 

“ Oh, no, she did n’t mean me,” exclaimed 
Betty, deprecatingly. 

“Yes, she did; and Mary nodded and 
said, ‘ She makes some of the girls look like 
paper dolls.’ Oh, you were so splendid! 
You looked talV' 

“Tall! Did I really ? ” she exclaimed, 
highly flattered. “ Well, anyhow, I ’m glad 
it’s over.” 

“ I wonder how Miriam feels now,” asked 
Lois, triumphantly. 

“ Oh, I guess she feels like that — 

“ . . young lady of Niger, 

Who smiled as she rode on a tiger ; 

They came back from the ride 
With the lady inside, 

And the smile on the face of the tiger.’ ” 


THE DUEL — AFTER ALL 97 

The girls were laughing merrily together 
when Mary Livingstone came in to speak 
of the Latin episode and warmly congratu- 
late Betty on her triumph; facetiously pat- 
ting her on the head, after the custom of 
the “ reverend seniors,” she said, “ Good 
child ! Good work ! ” and the two new girls 
felt truly initiated. 


7 


IX 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 

A MONTH had passed since the great 
Latin controversy, and Betty had 
found school life somewhat more in 
accord with her old dreams; for, with a 
roommate like Lois, and one of the older 
girls for a staunch supporter, as Mary Living- 
stone was when she had time, no girl could 
be utterly forlorn. However, she missed the 
excitement of a crowd, to which she had 
been accustomed in Weston; for one of 
the greatest charms of boarding school in 
her anticipations had been the chatter and 
hubbub and constantly changing scenes of 
a house full of girls of her own age. She 
loved people and always liked to have them 
near. She could study with a room full of 
babbling girls and enter into the conversa- 
tion without effort, for she could talk and 
study in the same breath. In this respect 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 99 

she and Lois were very different, and when 
Lois had to be alone it fell to Betty to turn 
the other girls out of the room. 

The time for the first reception drew 
near, and Betty was troubled about her 
dress. Her deficiencies in matters of clothes 
had been so mercilessly exposed by Miriam 
and Caroline that even her unconcern was 
disturbed. She still wondered why it made 
so much difference, and seldom noticed 
what others wore ; but she was too sensi- 
tive to expose herself unnecessarily to their 
criticisms. What should she wear.? Miss 
Jane had been very firm and explicit in her 
direction as to when the lilac silk should be 
worn; and it was not to be worn for a small 
occasion like this. Her mother was not 
strenuous about such details, so Betty ac- 
cepted Miss Jane — being a dressmaker — 
as an authority, and an authority that could 
not lightly be disregarded ; but her soul 
loathed the black silk. 

Then there was her hair! For a discour- 
aged moment she almost determined not 
to go down to the reception, but it was only 


lOO 


BETTY BAIRD 


for a moment; no, she could not miss that; 
nothing could make her miss her first recep- 
tion at boarding school. Perhaps Cousin 
Elizabeth would remember to arrange it, 
as she once said she would. With her hair 
smooth and stylish like theirs, perhaps with 
a pompadour, she might pass the girls with- 
out much criticism. 

She did not express these thoughts aloud, 
even to Lois, because she could not bear to 
be pitied; but she knew that all the girls 
regarded the arrangement of one’s hair as 
the criterion of “smartness.” 

The reception evening came. Fortu- 
nately, as Betty thought. Miss Payne remem- 
bered her promise to arrange her hair; but the 
vexed question of the dress was still unsettled. 

“What shall I wear.^^” she cried to Lois. 

“Why not wear that pretty violet check ” 
answered Lois. 

“ But that is my Thanksgiving reception 
dress. I must save it for that. Miss Jane 
said.” 

“ Miss Jane ! Who is Miss Jane ? ” inquired 
Lois. 


HER FIRST RECEPTION loi 

“ Miss Jane ! It seems so strange you 
don’t know her. Why, she sews for us, 
and she is the dearest, crankiest old body 
in the world, — knits wash rags — here is 
one — when she can’t do anything else, 
and gives them away. She made all my 
duds.” 

“ I’d like to see her, but you must settle 
about your dress. Do wear the violet,” 
insisted Lois. 

“ Well, mother likes me to use my own 
judgment in such matters, and Miss Jane 
will never know,” added Betty, brightening, 
for she longed to get into that lovely, brand- 
new dress; and taking it down from the 
hook, she threw it on the bed, saying, — 

“ Now I must be off to Cousin Elizabeth, 
and be made beautiful. I ’ll put the dress 
on when I come back.” At the last word 
she flew out of the room. She returned in 
half an hour, looking wholly unlike herself. 
In a praiseworthy effort to curb the wild, wiry 
mop. Miss Payne had dampened it until it 
was several shades darker than normal, and, 
after much patient manipulation, had fash- 


102 BETTY BAIRD 

ioned little corkscrew curls all over the 
pretty head. 

It was a strange thing, perhaps, for Miss 
Payne to do, but the truth was, that, while 
her feeling for “ good form ” in general was 
strong, she gave little thought to such details 
as passing styles of hair-dressing. Her 
attention was attracted only by something 
much out of the ordinary. Such, in truth, 
was Betty’s tangled mop of short hair, the 
only short hair in the school, and the sole 
alternative seemed to be to make it sleek. 

“ Oh ! ” breathed Lois when she saw it. 
“ What on earth has she done to you ? ” 

“ Made me beautiful, of course,” answered 
Betty as she stepped gingerly to the mirror, 
afraid of disturbing the elaborate coiffure. 

“ Murder ! ” she screamed, catching sight 
of her wondrous head, and sinking on the 
floor in a gale of mirth. She sat there 
rocking back and forth, her arms clasped 
tight, and emitting peal after peal of laughter 
at the fantastic image facing her in the 
mirror. 

Lois was desperate. She knotted and 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 103 

unknotted her handkerchief; she implored 
Betty to get up ; she started to fan her hair ; 
she dropped the fan and ran for a towel ; she 
threw away the towel ; at last she sank into 
the rocking chair with her arms dangling 
helplessly at her side. 

“ Oh, I could cry ! ” she exclaimed. “ It is 
almost time to go down. I could shake you 
for laughing. Your cousin must be crazy. 
Do get up. I ’ll mop it with this towel and 
fan it. We must get ready ; we have only 
ten minutes.” 

Betty’s only response was one of her 
provoking quotations, delivered with grave 
gesture, to the image in the glass, — 

“ ‘ Oh, cobra-curled ! Fierce-fangM fair one ! Draw 
Night’s curtain o’er the landscape of thy hair ! 

I yield ! I kneel ! I own, I bless thy law 
That dooms me to despair. ’ ” 

Lois jumped out of the chair. “Oh, get 
up. You will drive me crazy. What in the 
world are we going to do ? ” 

“Why, I am going just as I am, of course,” 
she replied, getting up nimbly. 

“ But you can’t go looking that way.” 


104 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ I can and I am. Don’t you think I hate 
it ? ” she said, almost breaking down, and bit- 
ing her lips to keep back the tears. “ But 
there is nothing else to do ; ” and she added 
more calmly, “Now I ’ll slip on my dress 
and we ’ll go.” 

“ Oh, Betty, you can’t go that way. You ’ll 
be the laughing-stock of the place.” 

“ Cousin Elizabeth did n’t laugh.” 

“ I should think she would have known 
better than to fix your hair that way.” 

“ Perhaps she did it to keep down my 
pride,” said Betty, her eyes twinkling and 
smiles again chasing one another over her 
face. 

“ But do hurry, Betty. You must let me 
fan it.” 

“ No, I am going this way.” 

“ Oh, you contrary girl,” wailed Lois. 
“ Why do you persist in anything so foolish ? ” 

“ It is this way, Lois. I care a good deal 
more for Cousin Elizabeth’s feelings than I 
do for those girls who have n’t spared mine ; 
and she was really pleased over my — hair. 
Yes, you may look amazed, but she was, and 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 105 

she ’ll notice if I change it. You see, Lois, 
she did n’t want me to look so wild, and she 
usually pays no attention to such little, little 
things, anyhow. Miss Greene is the one 
who does. Besides, I am kind of daring 
myself to do it.” 

“ There ! I suspected pride was at the 
bottom of it,” said Lois, severely. “You are 
the proudest girl I ever saw. You hate to 
think you are afraid to go down there and 
have those girls laugh at you.” 

“ Come, let us go down, unless you are 
ashamed to walk with me.” 

“ I never desert my friends, even when 
they go crazy,” answered Lois, nettled at 
Betty’s perverseness. 

When they came to the door of the recep- 
tion-room, Lois discovered that she had left 
her handkerchief behind and, saying that 
she would be back in a minute or two, ran 
upstairs, leaving Betty alone at the door. 
She looked into the brilliantly lighted room, 
and her heart seemed to stop beating at the 
thought of walking its length to where Miss 
Payne stood. The company, though not 


io6 BETTY BAIRD 

large, included many distinguished people, 
for Miss Payne loved lions and knew how to 
cage them in her drawing-room, and to-night 
she was unusually fortunate in having a dis- 
tinguished portrait painter, several singers 
who were favorites with the metropolitan 
public, a writer of distinction, a famous 
Asiatic traveller, an Italian countess, and 
a number of prominent club women, as well 
as all the fashionable mothers who lived 
near. 

The room was not yet filled, and the en- 
trance of even a young girl could not, in 
those first moments of social adjustment, 
pass unnoticed ; this Betty realized only too 
keenly as she waited for Lois. 

“ I can’t go in,” she said to herself in a 
whisper, clasping her cold little fingers 
together behind her, her white face quiver- 
ing with dread, as she saw the laughing, 
handsomely-gowned figures flitting grace- 
fully and carelessly by. 

“ I must go, and I ’ll go in before Lois 
comes, for if I am ashamed of my own ap- 
pearance, I ought not to ask her to bear it 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 107 

with me, after refusing her advice, too ; ” and, 
biting her underlip until it was crimson, she 
walked into the room. 

Her appearance was greeted with smiles, 
giggles, and suppressed laughter by a group 
of girls near the door. 

“Just look at Paderewski, won’t you,” 
exclaimed Miriam. 

“Well, if she isn’t the craziest,” answered 
Jess, laughing and staring. Helen smiled 
derisively and glanced at Dorothy to see if 
she was laughing. 

Betty flushed, but walked by them with 
no other sign that she heard. 

“She’s too much forme,” said Jess. “I 
know she ’s no one ’s fool, after the way she 
read Virgil and keeps up in all her lessons, 
but to come here with corkscrew curls, like 
those in Godey’s Lady’s Book of i860, beats 
my time.” 

“ Oh, hush, Jess ! Some one will hear you 
use slang, and think us ill-bred,” said Helen, 
reprovingly. 

“ Oh, I heard Dorothy use that only yes- 
terday, and I thought it must be the proper 


io8 BETTY BAIRD 

caper,” answered Jess, with a tantalizing 
smile, for Dorothy was Helen’s model. 

“ Oh, look at the little darling! ” exclaimed 
Mrs. Terry, the well-known soprano, to one 
of the club celebrities. “ She is the quaint- 
est picture I have seen for a long time ; ” and 
she smiled on Betty, who could hardly 
believe that the smile was meant for her, but 
who instinctively smiled back and felt much 
better for the amenities. The color came to 
her cheeks, and, as her hair had almost dried 
in the warm room, she began to appear more 
natural. Miss Payne greeted her with an 
approving nod, and Betty, knowing that her 
hair had not escaped the all-embracing glance 
she gave her, was cheered to know that it 
had not been a futile martyrdom. But see- 
ing Lois seized by the Miriam set, a sense of 
loneliness crept over her, and she felt angry 
that she could not be like other girls, and 
stand in the happy groups, and watch the 
people, and talk and laugh. 

As she stood there, the famous painter 
saw her and asked Miss Payne to introduce 
him to “ that little bunch of lilacs.” 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 109 

“ Why, that is my little cousin and name- 
sake,” she answered, highly delighted, and 
she sent for Betty by one of the girls, who 
rather ungraciously delivered her message. 
Betty hurried over to them, and, though em- 
barrassed at the thought of speaking to the 
great man, — for the girls had talked more 
about him than about any one else, — his 
kind, gracious manner soon put her at her 
ease, and without knowing it she told the 
story of the lilac dress. Under the influ- 
ence of those friendly, interested eyes — 
eyes that nothing escaped — she talked as 
simply and naturally as if conversing with 
Lois. 

A year later, a picture called “ The Lilac 
Gown ” was the chef d' oeuvre of the Salon^ and 
the fresh girlish face looking out from it was 
wonderfully like Betty’s. 

“ Who is that young girl over there with 
the face of a miniature 1 ” asked Mrs. Living- 
stone of her daughter. “ I wore my hair 
that way when I was her age ; and what a 
quaint dress ! ” 

“ Oh, that is the brightest girl in the 


I lO 


BETTY BAIRD 


school — and the funniest,” she answered, 
as she went for Betty. 

“ Oh, see Mary Livingstone’s mother talk- 
ing to that fright ! I am surprised that Mary 
took her up to her, for Mrs. Livingstone is 
so particular,” whispered Miriam to Helen 
Dyke. 

“ Have you met Mrs. Livingstone ? ” in- 
quired Helen. 

“ No, have you ? ” 

“ No,” said Helen, regretfully. 

“ Why, every girl in the room laughed, 
when that guy came in,” continued Miriam. 

“ Are n’t those curls hideous ? ” asked 
Jessie. 

“ Perfectly awful,” they responded. Several 
other girls joined the group, and the conver- 
sation waxed warm over Betty’s hair and 
dress. 

“ I should be ashamed to speak to her,” 
lisped one of them. 

“ Why, look,” said Helen, “ every one is 
making a fuss over her.” 

“ She fixed herself that way to be conspic- 
uous,” said the sharp-tongued Miriam. 


HER FIRST RECEPTION iii 


“ She is certainly deep,” said Helen, with a 
determination to make friends with Betty as 
soon as possible. Mrs. Livingstone and Mrs. 
King were evidently making much of her 
and laughing as if she were saying bright 
things. 

More than one girl at The Pines that night 
saw something more in Betty than a poor, 
uninteresting country girl. So Miss Jane’s 
old-fashioned and countrified dressmaking, 
and Miss Payne’s surprising ignorance of a 
modern girl’s hair-dressing, turned to Betty’s 
favor. 

After the guests had gone. Miss Payne 
spoke a few words to Betty about the 
reception. 

“Mrs. Livingstone and Mrs. King said 
some very pleasant things about my name- 
sake. I am glad I arranged your hair so 
becomingly,” she added, stepping off and ad- 
miring the effect of the tight little curls that 
even yet had hardly opened, so firmly had 
they been glued together. 

“ Your mother has trained you beautifully. 
If I had any criticism it would be that you 


1 12 BETTY BAIRD 

are apt to become excited and talk too 
much.” 

Betty told Lois that her cousin had made 
her feel that she had been a regular fire- 
cracker, “each curl going off fizz — sputter 
— bang!” and added, “I wish I were like 
you, Lois. Everything you said to-night was 
so sweet and appropriate.” 

“ Oh, how can you be so silly ! You were 
the most admired girl there — the belle. 
No one could hold a candle to you, cork- 
screws and all.” 

The reception was the turning-point of 
the roommates’ life at the school. Mary 
Livingstone, although older than Betty and 
with special friends in her own class, found 
her extremely interesting, the more so as they 
both delighted in poetry, particularly in the 
ballads, and vied with each other in finding 
new ones and committing them to memory. 

Jessie Bentworth told Betty in her blunt 
manner that it was a shame the way they 
had treated her, and that her own feelings 
had changed towards her when she found she 
really was n’t a boaster. She had too much 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 


113 

delicacy to mention the unfavorable impres- 
sion the country clothes had made on them ; 
but Lois knew the cause of their prejudice, 
and it took her longer to feel friendly towards 
them than it did Betty, who found it so nice 
to have a friendly crowd around her that she 
was willing to accept their motives at their 
own valuation. 

Following the reception, everything was 
bright for Betty until the beginning of the 
following week, when she made a new enemy, 
and one who, for a time, materially retarded 
her progress in one study. Miss Leet, the 
teacher of mathematics, was always more or 
less sarcastic to those who were not thoroughly 
prepared for the recitation, except to Miriam, 
who received marked evidences of her fa- 
voritism. Betty was weak in mathematics. 
Study as hard as she could she seemed to 
make no progress; and algebra being Miriam’s 
favorite study, the only one, in fact, in which 
she was not dull, she gloried in showing her 
superiority over Betty. It was patent to all 
the girls that Miss Leet took advantage of 
every opportunity to enable her to do this, 


BETTY BAIRD 


114 

with the not unnatural result that Betty con- 
ceived a hearty dislike for the teacher. 

In the algebra class, on the Monday follow- 
ing the reception, Miss Leet, probably actu- 
ated by Betty’s triumph at the reception, 
showed more than ever her favoritism for 
Miriam and her dislike for Betty, and sub- 
jected the latter to a series of cornments 
which exhausted her stock of sarcasm. 
Betty’s new friends, with the well-known 
enthusiasm of converts, were highly indig- 
nant, and as soon as the recitation was 
finished, repaired to her room under Lois’s 
leadership, to hold an indignation meeting. 

Betty, detained downstairs for some min- 
utes, was thoughtfully mounting the stairs, 
when she saw Miss Leet, her head bent close 
to the door, listening so intently to the 
voices of the girls within that she had not 
heard Betty who, dumbfounded, stood stock- 
still for a moment, staring at her, then brushed 
unceremoniously past and walked into the 
room, closing the door with a slam. Miss 
Leet knocked at once, but not before Betty 
had time to say, “ Eavesdropper — do as I 


HER FIRST RECEPTION 115 

do ! ” and instantly a tableau was formed. 
As Miss Leet walked in she saw ten girls as 
silent as statues, standing with heads bent 
as if listening, each right hand forming an 
ear trumpet. Without a word she turned 
and left the room. 

The girls straightened up with deep in- 
drawn breaths, and looked at each other. 

“ Well, of all the mean, low, sneaking, con- 
temptible things I ever heard of that is the 
worst ! ” burst out Betty, her face aflame, her 
eyes wide with indignation, her whole frame 
quivering with rage. 

“ Oh,” laughed Jess, “ we have known for 
a good while that she was doing that ; but 
this is the first time she has been caught.” 

“ But — but — it ’s outrageous ! ” exclaimed 
Betty. “ I never would have believed a 
teacher could do such a thing.” 

“Oh, she’s in a class all by herself,” said 
Jess; and the interrupted indignation meet- 
ing proceeded with added vigor. 

The numerous petty persecutions, by 
which Miss Leet showed to whom she at- 
tributed her severe lesson in honor, only 


BETTY BAIRD 


1 16 

drew the girls closer to Betty. They felt 
that she was persecuted for their sake, as 
they all had long tried to devise some plan by 
which Miss Leet could be apprised that her 
habit of listening was known to them. 


X 

Hallowe’en 


“ ARE you aware, young people, what 

/-% evening this is ? ” asked Betty of 
the girls who, as their custom was, 
had dropped into her room while waiting for 
the dinner hour. There were no dull mo- 
ments where Betty was. 

“ What evening ? The thirty-first of Octo- 
ber.? Oh, Hallowe’en, to be sure,” cried 
Dorothy. 

“ Let ’s celebrate — how can we do it, 
Betty ? ” asked Lois. 

“ Allow me to think,” answered Betty, 
grandly. 

“ Please don’t ; it ’s dangerous. Then it 
is n’t allowed here in school,” said Jess. 

“ Well, if that is a rule it is one you never 
break,” retorted Betty. 

“You’re right there, Betty!” affirmed 
Caroline. “ Jess had that rule passed so she 


ii8 


BETTY BAIRD 


could graduate some time. It was her only 
chance.” Jess’s only reply was a playful 
dig. 

“ Hurrah ! I have an idea ! ” cried Helen. 

“ Oh, I ’m so sorry ; does it hurt you, 
dear.?” asked Jess, in a ludicrously sympa- 
thetic tone. 

“ Terribly,” responded Helen. 

“ But what is it ? ” they all demanded. 

“ It is this,” answered Helen, impressively. 
“ Let those of us who are in Miss Leet’s 
algebra class form a society of Never-Thinks 
and elect Betty President.” 

“ Good ! good ! ” they cried in chorus. 

“ Allow me to thank you from the bottom 
of my heart for this unexpected honor,” 
said Betty majestically, bowing profoundly 
to right and left. “ But to our celebration this 
evening! We must do something.” 

“ The best Hallowe’en stunt I ever 
heard of,” said Jess, “ is that if you go back- 
wards into a dark room alone, at midnight, 
with a candle in one hand and a mirror in 
the other, your future husband will look over 
your shoulder at you in the mirror.” 


HALLOWE’EN 


119 

“ Oh, that ’s jolly,” cried Dorothy. “ I ’m 
in for that.” 

“ Well, I can’t say I am much in favor of 
husbands,” said Mary, who had just come 
in, “ but, for the joke of it, I ’ll do it.” 

“ Who wants to see a husband ? ” scorned 
Betty. “ But it would be nice and spooky.” 

“ I know I am cut out for an old maid,” 
said Lois, “so I’ll not see any future hus- 
band.” 

“ Miss Leet will be after us if we do it,” 
said the cautious Caroline. 

“ Well, let her ! ” snapped Betty. 

Midnight came, the midnight of Hallow- 
e’en. The brown earth, showing through 
the thin covering of the fleecy flakes of an 
early snow, was hard and forbidding; the 
wind moaned and shrieked around the cor- 
ners of the house, while the giant pines 
clashed their mighty arms together; it was 
one of nature’s few repellent moods. It was 
indeed the night and the hour for supernatural 
influences; mystery was in the air ; the great 
trees with their eager, ghostly branches, had 


120 


BETTY BAIRD 


locked within them the haunting memories of 
the nights when elves and fairies and gnomes 
— their long abode opened by magic power on 
this one night of the year — had come forth 
from the solemn and majestic mountains, to 
disport themselves at midnight in the forest 
and on the green by the light of the pale 
winter moon, as, for one short hour, they 
held in elfin power this sombre, tired old 
earth. 

“ Sh-sh-sh,” was all that could be heard, 
as eight white-robed figures glided through 
the dimly-lighted corridors to meet in Betty’s 
room, their white kimonos and their un- 
braided hair giving an elfish, witchish appear- 
ance, as if they were indeed stealing forth 
from some cranny to meet a phantom bride- 
groom. Betty had made a garland of arti- 
ficial flowers — blue forget-me-nots — and 
entwined them in her hair in Mad Ophelia 
style ; and every girl had some character- 
istic touch in honor of the occasion. 

“ It ’s a lang and mirk night,” whispered 
Betty, as they waited for the town clock to 
strike the midnight hour, for, as she said — 


HALLOWE^EN 


I2I 


and she was the authority on such matters 
— “No influence can come from fairyland 
before the clock strikes twelve. That is 
their hour. I think I can see their fairy 
court now, riding through the forest over 
there,” she continued, as they stood huddled 
together at the great window overlooking 
the park and the mountains beyond the silent 
frozen river. The village clock struck the 
hour ; breathlessly they counted, — one, two, 
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 
eleven, twelve ! It stopped. 

“Who’ll go first?” was the whispered 
question. 

“ I won’t,” said Dorothy. “ I ’m afraid of 
that big empty class-room.” 

“ I ’ll go,” volunteered Betty. She stood 
looking out of the window as if watching for 
her elfin knight, and then, without a word, 
took up the silver candlestick, the flame flick- 
ering uneasily in the slight breeze as she 
moved ; in her other hand she held the 
mirror. They watched her in scared silence, 
as she entered the empty room and closed 
the door after her. Five long, shivery, scarey 


122 BETTY BAIRD 

minutes passed ; then she came out grave 
and quiet. 

“ What did you see ? What did you see ? ” 
whispered the girls excitedly. 

“You remember we vowed not to tell until 
all had been in,” Betty solemnly reminded 
them. 

“ Did you really see anything ? ” Mary 
asked her, but Betty replied only with the 
word, “ Go,” and Mary took the mirror and 
candle and went in. 

She returned presently, shivering and 
white. The other girls looked apprehensive, 
and one or two suggested that they go back 
to their rooms. 

“ No, I am going in now,” said Lois, 
bravely, though her voice was tremulous. 

“ Don’t go, Lois,” said Betty, thinking she 
was frightened. “You know this isn’t a 
dare.” 

“ I ’m not one of those ’fraid cats,” an- 
swered Lois, and went into the dark empty 
room. She soon came out laughing, with 
her finger on her lips. 

“ I heard Miss Leet say to some one down 


HALLOWE’EN 


123 

at the foot of the stairs that she thought she 
heard rats in the class-room, so I hurried 
back.” The girls hardly breathed as they 
heard a faint, slippered tread in the hall. 
The candle was extinguished, and the winter 
moon, looking in at the casement, saw hud- 
dled there eight pretty, scared faces, with 
a very commonplace influence superseding 
the supernatural one. But with Betty the 
power of the old romances still held sway. 
Her sympathetic imagination had carried her 
too far into elf-land to be frightened away by 
any fear of discovery. She stood by the 
window, and felt more akin to the fairies 
than to her companions ; she would have to 
wait a whole year for the strange little people 
to come again. She was brought back to 
earth by a tap on the shoulder, as Mary 
whispered, — 

“ Good-night, Ophelia. My respects to 
your wee, wee man.” 

The next afternoon the three girls who 
had tempted fate were besieged by the others 
of the Hallowe’en party to tell whether they 
had seen anything in the mirror. They were 


BETTY BAIRD 


1 24 

all together in Betty’s room. Jess dropped 
on the floor, Helen perched on the foot of 
the bed, while Dorothy, Caroline, and Belle 
Hunter sat on the long, wide window-sill. 

“ Say, Mary, that was n’t a bad bluff of 
yours last night,” announced Jess. 

“Bluff.? What makes you think it was 
a bluff ? ” demanded Mary. 

“ Why, everybody knows such things don’t 
happen nowadays,” Caroline answered, in a 
know-it-all tone. 

“Well, if everybody knows that, why were 
you afraid to go in last night .? ” Betty asked 
crushingly. 

“Honestly, now, did you see anything.?” 
Jess persisted. 

Betty and Mary looked at each other and 
shook their heads solemnly. 

“You promised to tell,” urged Dorothy. 

“ Oh, no, we did n’t. We promised not 
to tell until all had been in,” answered 
Betty. 

“ That ’s true,” said Mary ; “ and you ’ll 
only have to wait another year to try for 
yourselves,” she added coolly. 


HALLOWE’EN 


125 

“You mean things! Why won’t you 
tell ? ” complained Caroline. 

Mary and Betty whispered mysteriously 
together. 

“ My advice to you girls is to stay in your 
rooms next Hallowe’en night,” Mary said 
gravely. 

“You won’t be any happier if you go,” 
was Betty’s sibylline warning, and she looked 
unutterable things. 

“ As long as I live I ’ll remember last 
night,” said Mary. 

“ Well, you are a nice pair,” said Jess, as 
she flounced out, followed by the others. 

Had they followed Miss Leet’s example and 
listened at the door, they could have heard 
suppressed giggles as Mary turned to Betty. 

“ I did n’t see a thing, did you ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Mercy, no I ” exclaimed Betty, laughing. 

“ What made you so white, Mary ? ” Lois 
asked. 

Mary laughed heartily. “ Well, to tell the 
truth, a mouse about as big as the end of 
my thumb scampered across the floor and I 


BETTY BAIRD 


1 26 

left in a hurry ; but I would n’t let one of 
those girls know it for the world.” 

“ I was scared away by that rat Leetey,” 
laughed Lois. 

“ Oh, by the way, that reminds me. There 
is more trouble brewing for poor old Leetey. 
I received a note from John this morning 
(he ’s my youngest brother, you know), and 
he says some of the boys from his school are 
coming over to serenade us this evening. 
We have n’t had a serenade this year.” 

“ Oh, good. It will be my very first ser- 
enade. It will be so romantic,” exclaimed 
Betty, rapturously, a sentiment with which 
Lois fully agreed. 

The two wings of the building containing 
the dormitories enclosed a long narrow court. 
In the summer a beautiful fountain, tall bay 
trees, several marble benches, and the vine- 
covered walls made it a very attractive re- 
treat; but on this night it presented a 
deserted appearance, for the fountain was 
silent, the bays had found a winter refuge in 
the great hall, and the marble seats and 
terrace were covered with a light snow. It 


HALLOWE’EN 


1 27 

was, though, an ideal night for music, — 
moonlit, the air cold, clear and sparkling ; so 
thought the twelve young students from the 
Kip Preparatory School, as they stood in the 
court and began the prelude to that old 
favorite, “ The Spanish Cavalier.” The 
mandolins, banjos, and guitars gave forth 
ravishing sounds in the still frosty night. 

Candle-lights soon gleamed from two score 
windows, and subdued clappings of hands 
and suppressed laughter floated down to the 
young troubadours. Betty and Lois thrilled 
with the sweet strains ; they were fair ladyes 
of old in their castle strong ; brave knights 
were at their casement ; the drawbridge was 
down ; no enemy was in sight. 

The next song gave all the girls an extra 
thrill. 

“ ‘ Here ’s to the good old Pines, 

Drink it down; 

Here ’s to the good old Pines, 

Drink it down ; 

Here ’s to the good old Pines, 

All her girls have Gibson lines, 

Drink it down. 

Drink it down, 

Prink it down, down, down. 


BETTY BAIRD 


1 28 

Balm of Gilead, Gilead, 

Balm of Gilead, Gilead, 

We won’t go home any more, 

We won’t go home any more. 

We won’t go home any more,’ ” etc. 

In the midst of the affirmations of that oft- 
repeated last line they were rudely awakened 
from their romantic dreams by the appear- 
ance, at the entrance to the court, of two tall 
black-robed female figures, which, with much 
wavings of arms, “ shooed,” actually “ shooed ” 
the youthful minstrels. 

“ Shoo ! Shoo ! Go away ! Get out ! 
Shoo ! ” insisted Miss Leet’s high shrill 
voice. 

The opening to the court was narrow, 
and those two tall figures with long out- 
stretched arms effectually barred it to the 
now panic-stricken knights. Giggles from 
numerous windows pursued them. Many 
suggestions were hurled at them. 

“ Buck centre,” came the voice of one, a 
football enthusiast. 

“Jump over,” called another. 

“ Borrow an airship,” advised a third. 

Back and forth they ran, one brave knight 


HALLOWE’EN 


1 29 

fearlessly climbing upon the window-sill, but 
as it led him nowhere he dropped back. At 
last “Duck under” was advised by some 
level head, and there being no other way, 
duck under they did and scurried across the 
lawn, followed by a gale of laughter. In vain 
the grim figures held up warning arms. The 
sight was too ridiculous, and “ Good-night, 
kind sirs ! ” broke simultaneously from all 
the windows. 

Betty and Lois ceased to giggle only when 
sleep overcame them. 


XI 


THE PLAY 

S CHOOL life went on in quiet grooves, 
Betty conscientiously holding herself 
to her studies, which, indeed, she 
would be unlikely to neglect; for she real- 
ized, as forcibly as a young girl could, her 
great privilege in being enabled to attend 
such a school ; and this, combined with her 
ambition to please her parents, led her to 
study faithfully. She was first in her class 
in every branch except mathematics, where 
Miss Leet’s continual enmity made it almost 
impossible for her to overcome her natural 
distaste for the subject, as she might easily 
have done, with a teacher more friendly and 
interested. 

But, though studying hard, Betty looked 
forward with delight to those regular social 
events, which, while their sole end seemed 
to be recreation, were in reality very impor- 


THE PLAY 


13 ^ 

tant parts in the students’ training in social 
manners and usages. The next event on 
the school calendar was the great play at 
Christmas; for this year the Thanksgiving 
reception was to be omitted. 

Betty’s relations with the other girls be- 
came daily more intimate and friendly. She 
was the acknowledged leader of her class 
in every form of fun, both because of her 
power of leadership and because of the in- 
genuousness which endeared her to every 
one. The girls always knew just where to 
find her, Jess said. 

With the Christmas festivities in prospect, 
Betty had some secret quavers over her 
clothes. While she knew there was little 
or no danger of a repetition of the ex- 
tremely disagreeable experiences she had 
passed through, she was none the less anx- 
ious to appear well in the eyes of her 
exceedingly modish companions; and the 
prospect of having the contrast brought 
out again on a public occasion was very 
disquieting. 

Her feelings, however, were much soothed 


BETTY BAIRD 


132 

by Miss Payne’s kind offer to put her violet 
silk into the hands of her own New York 
dressmaker. When it was returned, it was 
a new garment. 

“ How did she do it ? ” cried the delighted 
and amazed girl. 

“ Oh, Roberts is half French,” replied 
Miss Payne, laughingly. Betty spent a 
silent moment in wondering what Miss Jane 
would say if she called her “ Hufnagel,” and 
she almost laughed aloud at the fancy. 
After heartily thanking her cousin she took 
her dress to her room. 

“ Now it is a beauty. It will make your 
dear friend Miriam open her eyes,” said the 
pleased Lois. 

The few weeks between Thanksgiving 
and the Christmas holidays were busy ones 
for the whole school, and the girls almost for- 
got to mark off the days from the calendar. 
The Christmas entertainment was always 
the largest and the most important one of 
the year. This time a play was to be given 
in which Betty was assigned a prominent 


THE PLAY 


133 

part, one that Miss Payne decided should be 
taken only by a girl in short skirts; it was 
the part of The New Woman. 

Betty planned a fetching and original 
costume, consisting of a short black skirt, 
a mannish coat with a stiff-bosomed shirt, 
smart linen collar, and natty bow tie. These, 
with a low derby hat on her short fair hair, 
gave a peculiarly piquant and boyish effect. 
Tan riding boots with leather leggins and 
a little riding whip completed The New 
Woman of the play. 

The rehearsals were always held in one 
of the wings of the building; the girls dress- 
ing in their rooms, then going through a 
small back hall and down into the audito- 
rium. After dressing for the last rehearsal 
Betty decided, without any particular reason, 
not to go the usual route but to go through 
the long drawing-room, which, at that hour, 
was never occupied. It was simply a ca- 
price, a mood which required something 
new. 

Just before entering the room she twisted 
a little piece of paper she found in her book 


BETTY BAIRD 


134 

into an imitation cigarette. With this held 
daintily between the fingers of her left hand 
and the natty whip in her right, and feeling 
like a lad of fourteen, Betty walked jauntily 
into the room and half-way across the floor 
before she saw two gentlemen sitting on the 
sofa in the shadow. She felt her cheeks 
burn. She could not turn back and her 
feet almost failed to carry her forward. She 
glanced at the figures again, and, to her 
horror, found that one was the Bishop and 
the other the dignified rector of their church. 
Worse and worse ! Suddenly the thought 
came to her, “ Maybe they ’ll think I ’m a 
boy for sure,” so she doffed her hat with a 
right gallant boyish swing. The church- 
men responded gravely, and Betty tripped 
on with a light heart, believing the country 
was saved. 

As soon as the rehearsal was over she 
rushed to her room to tell Lois, and, throw- 
ing herself into the rocking chair, she rocked 
as if her life depended on it. 

“ Oh, Lois, I had the greatest adventure 
just before rehearsal! Oh, dear, I don’t 


THE PLAY 


135 

know whether to laugh or cry ! But it was 
so funny! I wonder if they could have 
suspected.” 

Lois, who was curled up on the window- 
seat, looked up in surprise. 

“Who could have suspected what.? 
What ’s wrong with you. Bet .? What in 
the world has happened? An adventure? 
Oh, go on and tell me, you mean thing. 
What was it ? ” 

Alternately shivering with fear lest she 
had been discovered, and shrieking with 
laughter as she felt that maybe she had 
deceived them into thinking she was a boy, 
Betty told her story. 

“You fooled them, you fooled them!” 
cried Lois, “ I k 72 ow you did. Oh, I wish 
I had been there ! What fun ! Good boy, 
good boy ! ” and she literally danced in her 
excitement, whieh so infected Betty that she 
jumped up and grasped her hands, and in 
a moment the two were in a mad whirl 
around the room, which exhaustion alone 
stopped. Then they sat down and laughed 
until they cried. 


BETTY BAIRD 


136 

At dinner time Miss Greene asked Betty 
to come to her room before the study hour, 
a not unusual request, for the two had 
become fast friends. Joyfully she ran up 
to the quiet room. She found Miss Greene 
grave on the surface, but the twinkle in her 
eyes evidently indicated an undercurrent of 
fun. 

“ What is it, Miss Greene ? ” asked Betty. 

“ This afternoon, Elizabeth, I had two 
distinguished callers — ’’she began gravely, 
but could not finish, for the girl dropped to 
the floor a limp mass. 

“Now I ’ll do just what I wanted to do 
then, — sink through the floor.” 

Try as she might to repress a laugh. Miss 
Greene had to give way. 

“You incorrigible child, get up and listen 
to me.” 

“ Not before you absolve me,” cried Betty, 
dramatically, but getting up nevertheless. 

“ When I went into the drawing-room 
I caught my serious, dignified guests laugh- 
ing like schoolboys, though they tried to 
stop as soon as I appeared. I have known 


THE PLAY 


137 

the Bishop since I was a child, and he loves 
to tease me, especially about what he calls 
my teacherly primness, for I have not always 
been such a dragon as I am now. Well, I 
asked what the fun was about, and it pleased 
the Bishop to be very mysterious. 

“ ‘ I did not know that you had adopted a 
peculiar garb for your strong-minded young 
students in this Stronghold of Intellectu- 
ality,’ he remarked in a tone of grave sur- 
prise, as if he had never laughed in his life. 
Those penetrating eyes of his never left my 
face, but the hilarity that seemed to emanate 
from our sober Mr. Carson proved that the 
Bishop had not been suddenly bereft of his 
reason ; and then there were the chuckles 
that had fallen on my ears as I came in. 

“ ‘ What do you mean. Bishop ? ’ I implored, 
wholly puzzled. 

“ ‘ Oh, excuse my — then it ’s not general — 
this bewitching costume ? ’ My mystified 
expression evidently delighted his wicked 
old heart. 

‘“Just before you came in, a young lady 
passed us dressed in the style, I should 


BETTY BAIRD 


138 

think, of The New Woman, a riding whip 
and what seemed a — yes — a cigarette in 
her hand ! ’ ” 

“ Oh, Miss Greene, not a real one ! ” 

“ They knew that, dear,” she replied, see- 
ing the genuine distress on the girl’s face. 
“ They complimented you on your gallantry, 
and when I told them you were only four- 
teen, they understood that it was only a 
thoughtless prank, and said they were coming 
to see you play to-morrow night.” 

“ Oh, 

“ ‘ The “ cuss ” is come upon me, cried 
The Lady of Shalott,’ ” 

Betty moaned. 

“ You deserve a scolding for going through 
the parlors, but I shall say only this : don’t 
tell any one about it.” 

“ Oh, I had to tell Lois, Miss Greene.” 

“ Very well ; but make Lois promise not 
to tell.” 

“ Oh, she would never breathe it ; she ’s 
just the truest girl ! ” 

“ By the way,” continued Miss Greene, 
“ the Bishop will bring his two grandsons to 


THE PLAY 


139 

the play, and I want you to talk with them. 
They are good boys and great favorites of 
mine.” 

“ If they are half as nice as their grand- 
father I ’ll talk to them all right,” replied 
Betty, glibly, her mind resting on the famil- 
iar, kindly old face. 

“ ‘ Et tu. Brute,' ” sighed Miss Greene, 
reproachfully. 

Betty understood, and though she colored 
she answered stoutly, — 

“ A girl does n’t like to be singular in 
every respect. Miss Greene.” 

“ That is true,” answered Miss Greene, a 
little sadly. She realized that Betty had 
borne much because of her old-fashioned 
dresses, and that her fine quaint language 
had undoubtedly seemed to the girls a part 
of her singularity. 

“ You look like a fairy,” said Betty, raptu- 
rously, as Lois stood off for inspection after 
she had dressed for the entertainment. “ That 
is certainly the most elegant, the most re- 
cherche, the most stunning dress that ever 
beautified The Pines.” 


BETTY BAIRD 


140 

“Is that all?” asked Lois, with affected 
patience, as Betty stopped for breath, then, 
as if oblivious of any interruption, proceeded : 
“You will certainly be 

“ ‘ The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 

The observed of all observers,’ ” 


and Betty backed up her quotation by twirl- 
ing Lois around to get the best possible 
view of the creation. “You ’ll do,” was her 
peroration. 

“ It is a good little dress,” said the preoc- 
cupied Lois, “ but what ’s a dress if one ’s 
going to act like a dunce ? I know I shall 
forget my recitation to-night.” 

“ You simply can’t forget it,” answered 
Betty, emphatically. “ I asked you suddenly 
last night to recite during all the noise the 
girls were making, to see if you would be 
upset, and you did it perfectly.” 

“ That was a good test,” said Lois, bright- 
ening, “ but then this will be different. 
Think of all the strangers who will be there! 
Oh, my! I am selfish to worry over my 
little part,” she added, “ when you have so 


THE PLAY 


141 

much — all those words in the play and the 
acting too — but you always come out ahead.” 

“ Well, if my tongue proves as unruly as 
my heart is just now — it ’s up in my throat 
— a very inconvenient place for it — I ’ll be 
packed off double quick to a school for 
stutterers.” Lois looked surprised. 

“ Why, you are not frightened, are you ? ” 

“ I ’m clammy with fear ; ” and though Betty 
laughed, Lois knew she was doing her best 
to keep her courage up to the sticking point. 

“You’ll come up and help me to change 
my dress after the play, won’t you ? For 
my fingers will all be thumbs, as Miss Jane 
says.” 

“ Indeed I shall. I am anxious to have 
the girls see you in that dress as it is now. 
It is lovely and so becoming.” 

“ I am glad it is fixed. Cousin Elizabeth 
was so pleased when I told her how ravish- 
ing it is. If she were n’t so busy I think 
she would be nearly as funny and good to us 
as Miss Greene, but — ” and Betty shook 
her head — “ next to the Mother there is no 
one like Miss Greene for understanding.” 


BETTY BAIRD 


142 

Lois had finished dressing, and was sitting 
on the window-seat, alternately groaning and 
reciting her poem. 

Betty rambled on while she put the finish- 
ing touches to The New Woman’s suit. 

“ I wonder whether the Bishop will know 
me when I am changed into a little girl.” 

“ I wonder what his grandsons will be 
like." 

“ Oh, hateful, as all boys are, teasing and 
rude. However, Miss Greene says these are 
particularly fine, and maybe there is some 
hope for them.” 

“ I don’t know many boys,” answered Lois, 
thoughtfully. “ Those I do seem very nice 
and quiet.” 

“You ought to meet some of the Weston 
boys,” exclaimed Betty, hotly. “ They send 
you comic valentines and mimic you ! Edith 
and I just pass them by with scorn, our 
noses up in the air. But,” she went on en- 
thusiastically, “ if these boys are like Bishop 
Waborne they ’ll be splendid. Am I all 
right } ” She was dressed in her New 
Woman’s suit with a yellow rose in her 


THE PLAY 


H3 

button-hole ; she looked extremely pretty and 
interesting. 

“ Well, you ’re a wonder ! You can wear 
anything,” said Lois. “ Oh,” she continued 
with a groan, “ if my recitation were only 
over I would be happy.” 

“ ‘ ’T is never too late for delight, my dear,’ ” 

quoted Betty. 

Mary Livingstone had been assigned the 
leading part in the play ; to this her age and 
standing in the school entitled her. The 
other parts were distributed among the 
better known girls of the different classes. 
Of these Betty had one of the most promi- 
nent, and the fact that a new girl had been 
selected for it caused a good deal of envy 
and excited comment among the less for- 
tunate. 

“ Why should Bet Baird be in the play ? ” 
asked Caroline of Miriam. 

“ Oh, she ’s Miss Greene’s pet, as every one 
can see,” answered that sweet-natured girl. 

“ Some one said she is related to Miss 
Payne,” said a girl standing by. 


144 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ Never in the world, — that country girl ! ” 
protested Miriam. 

“ Well, ‘ that country girl,’ as you call her, 
Miriam, is growing mighty popular; and she 
certainly comes within an ace of being the 
cleverest girl in the school. Even Leetey 
had to own up that she was pretty when 
I asked her,” said Jessie, in her teasing 
way. 

“ Jess Bentworth, I am surprised at you. 
Did you have the impudence to ask Miss 
Leet such a question when you know how 
trying that country girl is to her ? ” 

“‘That country girl,’ ” again quoted Jess, 
maliciously, “ would n’t be so trying in alge- 
bra if Leetey were fair.” 

“ I did n’t know that you too had become 
a victim of that designing snip,” retorted 
Miriam. 

“ Oh, I have n’t become a victim, but I 
do like a girl who can read — Virgil as well 
as she can.” At this there was a cold-hearted 
giggle at Miriam’s expense. 

“ ‘ Dogs delight to bark and bite, 

For ’t is their nature to,’ ” 


THE PLAY 


H5 

said Mary Livingstone, as she passed the 
angry Miriam and the cool, tormenting 
Jess. 

“ Wait, Mary, I ’ll go with you,” cried 
the exasperated Miriam, glad to get out of 
the clutches of the greatest tease in the 
school. As Miriam walked off with Mary 
she saw Betty coming towards them arm in 
arm with Dorothy. 

“You can’t budge an inch without seeing 
that hateful thing,” muttered Miriam. 

“ Now, Miriam,” said the philosophical 
Mary, “ you can’t keep down a splendid girl 
like Betty ; ” and, turning directly towards 
her, she added emphatically, “ you only 
make yourself disliked by trying.” 

The play was a success. Betty astonished 
every one by her spirited interpretation ; for 
while her lines were no more important than 
several others’, so vivid was her presentation 
that in the eyes of the audience she assumed 
a place fully equal to Mary’s. This was due 
largely to her old childish habit of “ make 
believe,” which she had kept much longer 


10 


BETTY BAIRD 


146 

than the majority of girls. Before the hour 
set for beginning she had gone off alone 
for a while and imagined herself into the 
part. 

The Bishop was carried away by her spir- 
ited acting and applauded as vigorously as 
his young grandson Reginald, with whom he 
fully agreed that she was “great.” He had 
a humorous recollection of the blushing 
young face of the day before, and it gave 
him the interest one feels in an acquaint- 
ance. Betty caught a glance from his keen 
eyes, shining young and blue out of the 
florid, weather-beaten, white-crowned face. 
His eagle nose and thin compressed lips 
showed the man of iron will. He possessed 
in a marked degree that look of authority 
which comes after many years of executive 
power ; but over his stern features radiated a 
smile so bright and glancing, so kind, that 
Betty, in speaking of it to Miss Greene, lik- 
ened it to the waters of a spring rippling over 
a rock. The latent fire of hero worship was 
kindled, and Betty found in the Bishop a 
hero. 


THE PLAY 


147 

When she had changed back into the little 
girl of fourteen, a “little bunch of lilacs,” 
Miss Greene took the roommates up to him, 
and the Bishop thought he had never seen 
a dearer little face than the one looking up 
so shyly into his. Betty had, in three and a 
half months, discovered that it was not nec- 
essary for her to make conversation, — some- 
thing she had had much trouble to learn. 
She now had a great desire to say some- 
thing witty to her hero, but as nothing came 
to her she did not give herself any anxiety 
about being entertaining, as she would have 
done formerly. Miss Greene had seen this 
haste to “ make conversation ” — the out- 
growth of her leadership and a detestation 
of things poky — and had impressed on her 
a quotation from her favorite novelist, one 
too deep and difficult for Betty to read ; but 
the wisdom of the quotation was not obscure 
even to a girl of fourteen. 

“ Preserve your composure until you have some- 
thing to say. Wait for your opening; it will come 
and the right word with it. The main things are 
to be able to stand well, walk well, and look with 
an eye at home in its socket.’' 


BETTY BAIRD 


148 

Knowing Betty’s temptation in excitement 
“ to pump up her wit,” Miss Greene enlarged 
on it and applied it with friendly remorseless- 
ness. While Betty’s ready wit and original- 
ity, combined with more sterling qualities, 
had won the schoolgirls, to the tired, world- 
worn Bishop her pretty quiet way of looking 
up at him had more attraction than repartee. 
The Bishop enjoyed a good joke, though it 
was said that his own were only passable, 
and to-night with his young grandsons, lads 
of fifteen and seventeen, he was the young- 
est of the group. 

“You children talk here while I speak to 
Miss Payne and the other folks I know. 
When I come back I ’ll tell you a first-class 
story. Come, Miss Greene. Paul, here, is 
studying for the priesthood; he’ll be chap- 
erone. Besides, The New Woman does n’t 
need one.” 

As he said this, the Bishop placed his 
white, firm. Episcopal hand on the shoulder 
of a tall, slender, handsome youth, with a pale 
face lighted up by the spirit of an enthusiast, 
then moved off in his joyous, stately fashion. 


THE PLAY 


149 

“ He always says that,” grumbled Paul. 

“ He ! Who ’s he ? ” asked Betty, pertly. 
She thought he should speak more respect- 
fully of his splendid old grandfather. The 
boy turned away proudly, vexed and hurt. 
It is hard to tell when boys are hurt, they 
hide it so carefully. Betty decided that he 
was a sulky fellow, and as such he was espe- 
cially displeasing to her. “ Better have them 
rude and teasing, if one must have them,” 
she thought, as she started away. She had 
gone only a step or two when Paul called to 
her, half commanding, half pleading, — 

“ Please excuse me.” 

“Oh, certainly,” she said casually; then 
glancing at the big boy and seeing some- 
thing that made her sorry for him, her kind 
little heart relented and she came near him 
again and began asking him all sorts of ques- 
tions rather teasingly. 

Would n’t he please tell her about his 
work.? Was he going to be 2 ^ priest 1 Was 
he high church .? Ought she call him 
Father? She hurled these questions at 
the lad until he didn’t know what to 




BETTY BAIRD 


150 

do. He tried to be tactful, but blundered 
terribly. 

“ I am only a student,” he said at last, “ and 
I think you would find a description of our 
work much more interesting than church 
history.” 

“ Oh, I love church history ; I was reared 
on it,” exclaimed Betty. 

“ But this is no place for a serious discus- 
sion,” replied the desperate youth. 

“ But ought you lose an opportunity for 
enlightening me ? ” At this he looked 
decidedly grumpy, which did not surprise 
her, for to her all boys were alike unami- 
able. 

“ Perhaps you don’t approve of acting,” 
she suggested primly. 

“ I enjoy Shakespeare, when he is faith- 
fully portrayed,” Paul replied in a cold, 
impersonal voice. 

“Oh, I have never seen him paint — oh, 
I mean portrayed,” she answered exasperat- 
ingly, for she thought him affected. 

“ The play to-night,” she continued, “ must 
have been painful to — one like you.” This 


THE PLAY 


151 

ambiguous remark made the serious youth 
glance at her to read its meaning. 

“ Did you find your part congenial ? Do 
you like a mannish woman } ” he asked 
abruptly. 

“ But I am only a little girl,” she answered, 
laughing. “ At least they won’t let me have 
long skirts, though I beg hard.” Looking 
into the ascetic’s eyes she saw there much 
seriousness but little humor. He would not 
be diverted. 

“ I ’m not much older than you and I would 
not condescend to take a womanish part.” 

“ Oh, I should hope not ! ” cried Betty, 
concealing her desire to laugh at the idea of 
this stately youth in such a frivolous guise. 

“ She has nice feelings,” thought Paul, who 
took himself tremendously in earnest. He 
brought her a chair. 

“ My grandfather told me about seeing you 
yesterday.” 

She reddened and exclaimed spiritedly, — 

“It wasn’t fair of him! It isn’t fair to 
make people ashamed of things there is n’t 
any wrong in.” 


BETTY BAIRD 


152 

“ Anyway, you have won his heart,” Paul 
said apologetically. 

“ Why, it was wonderful that he should 
speak of me,” said the girl, her e3^es wide 
with surprise. It seemed as if some great 
statue, with its head in the clouds, had 
spoken of her. 

“We have lived with grandfather and 
grandmother ever since our mother died.” 

“ Oh, how awful ! ” exclaimed Betty. 

“ Awful to live with grandfather ? ” in- 
quired the surprised Paul. 

“ Oh, no. That is beautiful. But, not to 
have a mother ! Lois has n’t a mother, either. 
I don’t see how people live without them.” 

“We were too young to feel it; and our 
grandparents have been everything to us. 
Father’s business compels him to travel a 
great deal.” 

To Betty he was some one to be sorry for, 
just as Lois was. 

“ What a smart little piece your friend 
is,” said Reginald to Lois, looking towards 
Betty. 


THE PLAY 


153 

“ Piece ! ” repeated Lois in surprise. But 
looking into his merry blue eyes she saw 
that in his boyish fashion he had expressed 
genuine admiration for her friend. 

“ I never,” he continued in his happy 
young voice, “ saw a girl go through a thing 
the way she did that to-night, and grandad 
said so too. And she ’s only fourteen. Why, 
I ’m a year older than that, and I could n’t 
begin to do it. Did she ever do it before ? ” 

“ No, this was her first time.” 

“ Gee whiz ! ” gasped the boy; and the two 
talked on, having a congenial subject. 

“You are going home to-morrow, I sup- 
pose,” said Reginald to Betty. 

“ I am thankful to say I am,” she answered. 

“You are coming back?” asked Paul, in a 
peremptory manner. 

“ If I must,” she answered, wholly nettled 
at his air of disapprobation. 

“You, then, find school irksome, and 
would like to escape ? ” pursued Paul, in his 
earnest way ; scolding, Betty thought it. 


154 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ ‘ . . .all the world round, 

If man bear to have it so, 

Things which might vex him shall be found,* ” 

she quoted her favorite defence wearily in 
answer, as the Bishop approached to make 
his adieus. 

The two girls were silent until they 
reached their room, when Betty burst into a 
flood of tears. She was overwrought from 
the strain of the play and the excitement 
following it. Half laughing, she made her 
defence. 

“ I am only a little country girl, after all. 
See how you bear it.” 

“Yes, but I didn’t have half to do that 
you had.” 

“Your recitation was perfect. I was so 
proud of you.” 

“ With your triumph you can afford to be 
generous,” said Lois. 

“ That big boy did n’t like it,” answered 
Betty, dejectedly. 

“ His grandfather did, and his brother 
thinks you are wonderful.” 


THE PLAY 


155 

“ Oh, he does n’t know anything. He ’s 
only six months older than I am — I asked 
him — and I don’t care what he thought. But 
the Bishop’s nice compliments did puff me 
up a little.” 


XII 


AT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS 

S HE was going home for Christmas! 
Oh, joy I On the train her heart sang 
in unison with the click of the wheels 
on the rails. Christmas had always been a 
wonderful event for her, but now it meant 
not only that, but going home, after four 
months’ absence, to father and mother and 
Edith and Miss Jane and Elder Huggentug- 
ler, and the others. 

Betty was met at the station by her father, 
behind whom stood Edith and all the girls 
of the old crowd. They were eager to see 
in what way she had changed, for they 
fully expected a great difference. When 
she got off the car they saw her in the very 
same clothes she had worn when she went 
away, but, oh, the hat was so new and styl- 
ish! Any one could see that it came straight 
from New York! Her joy on seeing them 


AT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS 157 

proved that she had not grown proud ; 
there was a settled belief among them that 
boarding schools make girls “stuck up.” 

Betty and her father walked on ahead, 
while the escort of honor, consisting of 
Edith, May, Ada, Jane, Martha, and Sallie, 
followed close behind. She looked back 
every minute or two to say something to 
her followers, and in betw'een times they 
discussed her. 

“ She is taller,” said Edith. 

“ She is pretty — I did n’t know she was 
pretty,” said May. 

“ Where in the world were your eyes ? ” 
asked the loyal Edith. 

“ Her hat is becoming,” contributed Ada. 

A few gay words from Betty and the in- 
ventory would continue. 

“She’s just as cute as ever,” avouched 
Jane, after one of Betty’s speeches over her 
shoulder. 

“ I wonder if she has any new poetry,” 
said Edith; and she ran on ahead to ask, 
coming back joyfully to announce that she 
had a great deal, and some new songs too. 


BETTY BAIRD 


158 

“She will sing and recite at our Christmas 
entertainment, and, oh, girls, she was in a 

PLAY ! ” 

“Oh!” ejaculated the group in a long- 
drawn breath. 

When Mrs. Baird had Betty in her arms 
she said to herself, — 

“ I can never, never let her go away 
again; ” and Betty felt that she could never 
leave. Old Kittie showed all her shining 
teeth as she welcomed her with a loving 
scolding. 

“ Hurry up now, chile. Ev’ryting ’ll be 
dead cole, ef you doan git a move on you.” 

There was her favorite jelly on the table, 
and holly leaves and berries added to the 
cheer. It was a royal home-coming. 

For ten days her tongue hardly ceased. 
Every detail of her life at The Pines was 
rehearsed for the satisfaction and amaze- 
ment of all willing listeners. Of course 
her mother was always there, and was a 
glad listener to things she had heard a 


AT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS 159 

dozen times, and each time with a glow 
of satisfaction, or indignation or surprise, 
whatever the emotion the story demanded ; 
but the slights on account of her clothes 
Betty told only to her mother. 

Her father stole downstairs from his study 
again and again to listen without comment 
to the school stories, his pale face flushing 
with pride when she related her Latin tri- 
umphs, triumphs she had not thought much 
about until she found how they pleased her 
parents. 

Betty never allowed anything to lose by 
the telling. She was truthful, yet she was, 
above all, graphic. She delighted in lively 
narrative, and she made the girls’ hair 
stand on end as she described the midnight 
frolics. 

Miss Jane came to see her with eyes alight 
with pleasure, and snapped out, — 

“ Well, I carc’llate you’re more stuck up 
’n ever.” 

“Oh, Miss Jane,” remonstrated Betty, with 
an assumed offended air, raising her hands 
protestingly. “ I thought you would be so 


i6o BETTY BAIRD 

glad to see me, and you begin to scold the 
first thing.” 

“I can’t begin too soon,” she replied, shak- 
ing her head sagely, while she rummaged 
through her bag for her knitting and spec- 
tacles. When she had adjusted her glasses 
and settled herself to her knitting, sitting up 
straight as a ramrod, she looked over her 
glasses complacently at Betty, who was talk- 
ing to Edith and showing her photographs 
of the schoolgirls. 

“ I guess, ’Lizbeth, there was n’t many 
better dressed girls ’n you at that high 
tunned school of yourn, was they ? ” 

“High? Nothing but the tower,” an- 
swered Betty who wanted to avoid reference 
to her clothes. She had not brought home 
her lilac silk, as she felt it would hurt Miss 
Jane to see the alterations made so soon. 
She could in fancy hear her criticism of cer- 
tain rough inside seams and the complacent 
comparison with her own neat finish. 

“ Highty-tighty ! ” answered Miss Jane ; 
and Mrs. Baird, knowing Betty’s purpose, 
sent her out on an errand. 


AT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS i6i 


“ That child is changed, Mrs. Baird. ’Liz- 
beth ’s different. She is still a colt, but a 
tamed one.” 

At the Christmas entertainment of the 
Sunday-School, Betty recited and sang. 
Usually the program was a pretty slow 
affair, but this night it was given color and 
dash by her personality and her gifts in 
music and recitation. Her several num- 
bers were received with great applause, 
particularly the last, a recitation which, 
accompanied by her vivid dramatic action, 
caused great excitement, so great, indeed, 
that Mr. Jones, solemn and red, short and 
rotund, approached her in an embarrassed 
manner, and, extending his right arm as he 
swung off to one side, dropped into her 
outstretched hand three pink peppermints; 
while Elder Huggentugler turned around, 
and, tilting back his chair and reaching 
back to her over the intervening shoulders, 
tossed into her lap a “ poke o’ peanuts ” 
with the words, — 

“ Betty, you done beautiful.” 


lOz 


BETTY BAIRD 


The ten days flew by all too swiftly, and 
Betty found herself once again at The 
Pines. Miss Greene welcomed her with 
evident satisfaction. 

“ I was afraid they would keep you,” she 
said. “ Bishop Waborne has been asking 
about you. He says Reginald contends that 
you are the first girl he ever knew who was 
equal to a boy.” 

“ ‘ Hope not for mind in women, ^ ” was 
her indifferent comment. 

“ I think I shall have to spend this 
year in trying to break that habit of quot- 
ing, Elizabeth,” said Miss Greene, semi- 
seriously. 


XIII 

A FEAST, A TRIAL, A NEW TEACHER 

T he monotony of school routine, to 
which the roommates had become 
accustomed during the fall term, 
now, after ten free, joyous days at home, 
returned to them with redoubled force. 
Something must be done to relieve it, so 
they decided to give a midnight feast, always^ 
a thrilling performance. 

There was a great deal of make believe 
about these feasts. The girls tried hard to 
ignore what they fully recognized, — that they 
were not so much a break for liberty as they 
seemed to be. Yet they were outlets for 
youthful spirits, — perhaps a little too re- 
pressed in the regular life of the school, — 
and a certain number were always expected 
during the year and considered by the 
teachers things to be winked at, since ordi- 
narily they involved no infraction of any 
important rule of the school. 


BETTY BAIRD 


164 

So, two weeks after their return, Betty 
sent out cabalistic invitations, illuminated in 
red and gold after the fashion of an old 
missal in the library, — 

At the Sign of the Moon, 

At the Hour of the Fairy Ring Dance. 

By the exercise of their wits they con- 
trived to smuggle in what they fondly re- 
garded to be abundant supplies for a fair 
banquet. After dinner they were congrat- 
ulating themselves upon their success, when 
suddenly Betty threw up her hands, gave a 
groan, and dropped into a chair. Lois was 
frightened. 

“Oh, dear, Betty, what is the matter 
Are you sick ? ” 

Betty’s look of distress was almost dissi- 
pated by the laugh in her eyes. 

“Oh, Lois! It’s all spoiled! Who ever 
heard of a feast at The Pines without char- 
lotte russe, and here we Ve entirely forgot- 
ten it.” 

Lois looked aghast, and she too dropped 
into a chair. 

“ Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! It 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 165 

will not be worth keeping the girls up for,” 
she said dolefully. 

“Yes, and I really boasted about it to 
Mary and Dorothy, right before Miriam too. 
She, by the way, declined to come. I ’m 
glad of it, too.” 

“So am I,” agreed Lois, heartily. 

“ But what are we to do, Lois, what are 
we to do ? The girls are scattered all around 
on different floors, and — oh, I know what 
I ’ll do ! ” and Betty straightened up and 
clapped her hands gleefully. 

“ Oh, what is it ? ” 

“You know that little shop kept by that 
nice old woman just outside the gate ? She 
and I are great friends, and I can get them 
there. I ’ll dress up like an old woman and 
get out through the kitchen. Lizzie is 
there, and she ’ll do anything for us. I ’ll 
not be afraid, for the night watchman is 
on the grounds and he ’ll think I ’m one of 
the servants.” 

“ I ’ll go with you.” 

“No, you mustn’t. There is less risk 
with one.” 


BETTY BAIRD 


1 66 

“ I ’ll watch you from our window.” 

“ Well, you may do that, though there ’s 
really nothing to fear, with old John out 
there, and I can talk loike anny ould Oirish 
leddy.” 

Electrified by the scheme, Betty went 
merrily to work. She knotted her hair into 
an untidy roll, wisps straggling out here and 
there ; on her head was an old untrimmed hat 
tied under her chin by a frayed ribbon ; on 
her feet a forlorn pair of overshoes ; a faded 
green shawl and long, bedraggled petticoat 
completing an effective disguise. With a 
small basket on her arm she sallied forth. 

She crept down through the servants’ hall 
into the dining-room, through which she 
expected to escape in safety to the kitchen. 
The dining-room was dark, and she started 
to grope her way towards the kitchen door, 
a long distance to make without a board 
creaking; she had traversed, perhaps, half the 
distance when the dining-room door was sud- 
denly flung open and revealed Miss Leet 
peering into the room, the light from the 
hall shining directly on the kitchen door. 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 167 

Crouching behind one of the tables Betty- 
hoped Miss Leet would soon leave, but the 
latter, swinging the door back still farther, 
propped it open with a chair, then began to 
wander up and down the hall, leaving Betty 
greatly puzzled to know what to do next. 
She saw that she could not get out by the 
kitchen door, so, finding herself near a 
window, she waited until Miss Leet was at 
the farther end of the hall, then opened it 
quietly, dropped her basket to the ground, 
and clambered after it. 

She was half-way down the walk, and was 
breathing freely again, when she suddenly 
came upon the old watchman, whose vigilant 
eyes she had hoped to escape. 

“ Och, thin, where do yez be goin’ this 
toime o’ noight ? ” he inquired. 

“Yez wouldn’t be afther interferin’ wit’ 
an’ ould woman, would yez ? ” Betty answered 
in her richest brogue. 

“ Oi disremimber havin’ seen yez afore. 
How long hev yez bin here ? ” 

“ Oh, I ’m just afther stayin’ here a whoile 
wit’ some ould frinds.” 


i68 


BETTY BAIRD 


Betty pushed him away as he chucked 
her under the chin. 

“ Arrah, be aff wit’ yer monkey thricks,” 
she protested, as she ran off as fast as 
her old shoes and long dress would allow 
her, while she determined to elude him 
on her return trip. 

Having procured the things she needed 
she trudged back to school. As old John 
was pacing his accustomed beat Betty took 
another path ; but she did not entirely escape 
his observation. 

“ Looks loike some wan movin’,” he mut- 
tered, and walked towards her. She hid 
behind a big tree just in time, the darkness 
under it aiding her. Believing that his eyes 
had deceived him the watchman continued 
his round, turning frequently to assure him- 
self that there was no loiterer within the 
sacred precincts. 

As soon as his back was turned Betty 
darted out and reached another big tree, 
when John stopped and turned, listening 
attentively. She was breathless from excite- 
ment and fear of discovery ; yet she enjoyed 



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A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 169 

the chase. The old man walked in her 
direction, muttering to himself, until he was 
so close that he actually rested his hand on 
the tree behind which she was hiding. He 
peered in all directions, but did not think 
to look so near home for what he was seek- 
ing. Betty was in a shiver. This was cer- 
tainly too close for fun. If he came around 
the tree her chances for escaping were 
small, but to her great relief she heard him 
mutter, — 

“ Must hov bin the threes movin’, I saw ; ” 
and he walked towards the front of the 
house, while Betty made her way to the 
kitchen door. She hurried up the stairs, 
meeting no one, rushed into the room where 
Lois had been watching her strategic move- 
ments from the window, and threw herself 
on the bed to recuperate. 

At the Fairies’ Hour, from twelve to one, 
eight fairies entered the room, one after the 
other, led by Mary Livingstone, who had on 
a bright blue kimono, strings of Christmas- 
tree decorations and pop-corn encircling 
her neck, and toy rings on her fingers. 


170 BETTY BAIRD 

She made a dazzling picture in the candle- 
light. 

Dorothy was in black, with silver paper 
stars hung around her neck and sewed on her 
kimono ; a great silver crescent moon in her 
hair completed the captivating costume em- 
blematic of night. 

Lois wore a pink velveteen robe and a sil- 
ver paper crown in her hair, giving her the 
air of a princess. 

As might be expected, Jess had a touch of 
the grotesque in her costume, which was a 
bright crimson kimono with a red peaked 
cap and other Mephistophelian touches. 

Helen and Caroline were two fairies with 
light unbraided hair, dressed alike in pink, 
and with pink artificial roses as girdles. 

Betty had brought from home, for just 
such an occasion, an old black brocade gown 
of her grandmother’s. It had a short empire 
waist, half low neck and short sleeves, and a 
broad lace collar fastened by an old cameo 
pin; the hoops were small but sufficiently 
large to give the proper effect; her yellow 
hair was piled on top of her head and sur- 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 171 

mounted by an old-fashioned tortoise-shell 
comb. 

At one end of the room hung an old red 
lantern, a recognized fixture of midnight 
feasts at The Pines ; at the other end, on a 
small table, stood a huge, stuffed black cat, 
their mascot. Two pairs of tin candlesticks 
stood on the tablecloth which was spread on 
the floor. A great bowl of red roses formed 
the centrepiece, and one rose lay at each 
plate, their artificiality being not too glaring 
in the candle-light. The plates formed an 
odd collection, gathered from all sources. 
The butter was in its own special wooden 
tray, made resplendent by a gorgeous paper 
napkin, decorated with wreaths of red roses. 
The sardines reposed in the native silver 
cans, the pickles in their own lovely Bohemian 
glass bottles; two large silver loving cups 
(in common parlance, tin buckets), with red 
roses tied to their handles, furnished the 
drinking vessels, aided by an odd tumbler or 
two. Tied to each rose at the plates was a 
place-card bearing these words, with illumi- 
nated initials, — 


172 


BETTY BAIRD 


And now they throng the moonlit glade, 

Above — below — on every side, 

Their little minim forms array’d 

In all the tricksy pomp of fairy pride. 

After a series of mystic incantations, in- 
sisted on by Betty as proper to such a great 
occasion, the feasters took their appointed 
places and “fell to” (as Jess called it) with 
much subdued jollity. The time passed 
very quickly, and the town clock boomed 
out one o’clock long before they expected 
it; accompanying it came the usual chan- 
ticleer chorus, with the comment from Caro- 
line, — 

“ I wonder why roosters always crow just 
at one o’clock.” 

“ Because they are natural chronometers,” 
flashed Betty, which caused a ripple of 
laughter impossible to stifle. 

“ Hush, girls. Old Leetey will hear us,” 
cautioned one. 

“ Yes, she will be only too glad of a chance 
to crow over us,” agreed another. 

As the magic power leaves at one o’clock, 
the fairies flitted to their rooms, to be sur- 
prised on the way by an ogre. Miss Leet. 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 173 

“ Miss Payne will hear of this to-morrow,” 
she announced grimly. 

“How did she happen to come up here ? ” 
the girls asked one another, for Miss Berry 
and Miss Smith were the teachers on that 
floor; and that was the question that dis- 
turbed more than one girl’s rest that night. 

The next morning Miss Payne called out 
the names of those who had been caught, 
and told them to come to her room. Betty 
and Lois were not mentioned among them, 
as they had not been seen by Miss Leet ; but, 
nevertheless, they went with the others. 

“ I did n’t ask for you two,” said Miss 
Payne, when she saw them. 

“ Is it about last night, Miss Payne ? ” 
asked Betty, going right to the point. 

“ It is,” she answered shortly. 

“ Lois and I came in. Miss Payne, be- 
cause the feast was held in our room. I 
suppose that was why Miss Leet did not 
see us.’' 

“ Miss Leet had an intimation that there 
was to be this violation of the rules, but she 


BETTY BAIRD 


174 

did not know what room it was to be in,’' 
explained Miss Payne. 

The principal’s estimate of the gravity of 
the affair was indicated by the lightness of 
the punishment inflicted, — to memorize 
Gray’s “ Elegy ” within the week. 

As they left the room twelve angrier 
girls could not be found ; even Caroline 
Wren was stirred to deep resentment, and 
her usually unchanging blonde face became 
crimson. The bored Dorothy was excited 
enough to gesticulate violently, and, of course, 
Helen was following suit. Lois was pale and 
weak from emotion, while Mary’s brown eyes 
flashed and her lip curled scornfully. As for 
Betty, well, she was haranguing the group, 
her hair standing on end from running her 
fingers through it, her cheeks flushed angrily. 

It would not be hard to guess the cause of 
the turbulence; certainly it was not the words 
of the preceptress nor the easily memorized 
poem; the storm centred on the absent- 
minded words of Miss Payne : “ Miss Leet 
had an intimation that there was to be this 
violation of the rules.” Who, questioned 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 175 

they, had been mean enough to tell her? 
Suspicion turned to Miriam. It came out 
that to harm Betty she had done many 
underhanded things, small in themselves but 
telling largely against her at this crisis. 

“ I saw her talking with Miss Leet only 
yesterday,” said Helen. 

“I saw her, too,” chimed in Jess, “and 
they stopped until I got by, though I heard 
Bet’s name ; but I did n’t dream it was any 
sneaking business like this.” 

“ Well,” said Caroline, I have always been 
Miriam’s friend. I cease to be so from this 
day. I now see some things in a very differ- 
ent light, — something she said to me yester- 
day. Begging me not to go to the feast 
looks mightily suspicious. I thought it was 
just her jealousy of Betty.” 

“ It could n’t have been any one else,” said 
Mary, emphatically. 

“ The question is, girls, what are we going 
to do about it ? ” demanded Betty. “ She 
may be innocent. Let us ask her.” 

“ Ask her ! ” they exclaimed. “ Why, a 
tell-tale will lie.” 


176 BETTY BAIRD 

“ It means fair play,” answered Betty. 

“ We ’ll put her on trial. Who will bring her 
here ? ” she asked, as hazy memories of the 
trial of Warren Hastings, which she had 
loved to read, floated through her mind. 

“You be the judge, Betty,” they demanded. 

“ I am not sure that I can be impartial,” 
she protested. 

“Well, we’ll be the jury and decide the 
question,” said Lois. 

“ Who is going for her.? ” asked Dorothy. 

“ I’ll go,” volunteered Jess, and went out. 
In a few minutes she returned with Miriam, 
who seemed very sullen. Around the room 
sat nine solemn girls. Judge Betty in a high- 
backed chair facing the door. 

“ Did you tell Miss Leet about our feast 
last night .? ” she demanded abruptly. 

“ What right have you to ask .? ” sneered 
Miriam. 

“We want to give you a chance to declare 
your innocence. We have good reasons for 
suspecting you. If you are innocent say so, 
and then we will go about finding the guilty 
— sneak.” The last word was hardly worthy 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 177 

of a judge, but her indignation grew as she 
spoke. 

“ I refuse to answer,” said Miriam, stub- 
bornly. 

“You ask her, Dorothy. Perhaps she’ll 
answer you.” 

“ I don’t care to have her speak to me,” 
said Dorothy, scornfully, and walked out of 
the room. Miriam tossed her head. 

“ Let ’s not say anything more about it,” 
said Betty; and Miriam left the room. 

“ For pity’s sake, what made you shut up 
that way,” demanded Jess. 

“ Oh, I thought she had enough after 
Dorothy said that. Then, too, I suddenly 
had a feeling that Leet wormed it out of her. 
I dont believe even Miriam would deliberately 
tell on her best friend just to spite mel^ Betty 
spoke in italics and made some impression 
in Miriam’s favor. 

“Well,” said Mary, “that may be as you 
say, but why did n’t she warn us when she 
found old Leetey knew about it } She evi- 
dently tried to warn Caroline.” 

“Yes, she did,” said Caroline, reluctantly. 


12 


BETTY BAIRD 


178 

evidently disliking her position as the best 
friend of the most unpopular girl in the 
school. 

“ Weil, I certainly don’t like Miriam, but 
I despise that Miss Leet. She ’s a snake in 
the grass. I wish we could get her out of 
the school,” said Betty. 

“ How could we manage it } ” asked Lois. 

“ Tell Miss Payne about this Miriam affair. 
She hates underhanded methods,” said Jess. 

“I don’t like telling,” said Betty. “We 
might all fail regularly in our history when 
she has the class. We can’t do it in algebra 
because I fail, anyhow. Perhaps she will 
understand and will be only too willing to 
leave The Pines.” 

“ Good scheme ! I am not in your class 
so I can’t add to her sufferings,” said Mary, 
regretfully. 

“ Most of us are, and we ’ll all say, ‘ I am 
unprepared ’ day after day until she reports 
it to Miss Payne; then, when she asks us 
about it, we ’ll tell her we can’t recite to such 
a — person,” explained Betty. 

“ I can’t see the difference between that 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 179 

and going to Miss Payne at once,” said the 
practical Belle Hunter. 

Betty looked at her pityingly. 

“We show Leet in the plainest way that 
we do not respect her, and force her to tell 
on herself by telling on us, for she will know 
the real reason, you may be sure.” 

“ Well, I can’t see any great difference 
yet, but I am willing,” said Belle. 

The next history class was exciting. Jess 
was called on first and in a clear tone re- 
sponded, “ Not prepared.” Miss Leet looked 
at her, saying, “Wait after class hour; ” then 
she called on Lois, who also responded, “ Not 
prepared.” Miss Leet, showing some sur- 
prise, told her, too, to remain. 

Caroline also joined in the refrain, “ Not 
prepared,” and was greeted with “ I am not 
surprised, but you, too, may remain after 
class. Now, Miriam,” she went on sweetly. 

As the latter recited every girl looked 
coldly away. She had taken her accustomed 
seat next to Caroline, who steadily refused 
to notice her. Then came Dorothy, who 
was also “ Unprepared.” 


i8o 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ She looks as if she smells a rat,” whis- 
pered Jess to Betty, who in reply quoted 
softly and compassionately, as she looked at 
Miss Leet, 

‘“In all the endless road you tread 
Tliere ’s nothing but the night, — and unprepared.’ ” 

“ Elizabeth Baird,” called Miss Leet, 
sharply as the whisper fell on her ears. 
Betty turned her head slowly and looked at 
her with cool imperturbable eyes. 

“ What were you saying } ” 

“ Only a line of poetry.” 

“ Repeat it.” 

‘“In all the endless road you tread 

There ’s nothing but the night, — and unprepared.’ ” 

“ Leave the room,” commanded the angry 
teacher, and, after a few more “ unprepareds,” 
she dismissed the class. 

This continued for a week, and Miss Leet, 
unable to stand the strain, told Miss 
Payne, giving, as the probable reason for 
their conduct, her report of the feast. She 
named Betty as the ringleader. The history 
class was called to Miss Payne’s room. 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER i8i 


“Young ladies, I have been told by Miss 
Leet that, since she faithfully reported your 
breaking of the rules, you have refused to 
recite in her history class. What is the 
explanation of this insubordination ? ” She 
looked severely at Betty who trembled, but 
managed to answer in a firm voice, — 

“We do not care to recite to Miss Leet.” 

“ I do not catch your meaning ; ” and Miss 
Payne’s voice showed amazement and dis- 
pleasure. 

“ It is this way. Miss Payne. Miss Leet 
has been going around listening at our doors. 
We know that because we caught her at it. 
No girl in the school would deliberately have 
told her about our feast, and we are sure she 
wormed it out of one of them. If we had 
been fairly caught by one of the teachers on 
that floor we would n’t have cared a bit, but 
to have Miss Leet go at it in such an under- 
handed way was more than we could stand, 
and we decided we would not recite any 
more history to her.” 

Miss Payne studied the girls’ faces thought- 
fully for a while, then she said, — 


i 82 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ I shall inquire into this and see you again 
if necessary. You are dismissed.” 

Miss Leet secured another position and 
soon left The Pines, to the great rejoicing of 
the pupils. 

The next morning Betty said to Lois, — 

“ I am going to tell Miss Payne this 
morning about going out for those things 
the other night. I should n’t have done that. 
You know we are strictly forbidden to go 
outside of the gate without permission. I 
don’t know why I did n’t think of it that 
way before, but I suppose it was this excite- 
ment about Miss Leet. I wonder what Miss 
Payne will do to me. Oh, dear, I hope she 
won’t send me away from school. What 
would mother think ! ” 

“Send you away from school for a little 
thing like that!” 

“ It was n’t a little thing, Lois. The feast 
itself was n’t so bad, but to dress up like that 
and go outside of the gate was, and you know 
it. I am going down right now and tell her 
and have it off my mind.” 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 183 

“ I am going with you.” 

“ What for ? ” asked Betty, in surprise. 

“ Because I was in it as much as you were. 
The only reason I did n’t go with you was 
because you wouldn’t let me.” 

“ Well, you are not going now.” 

“ I am, and you can’t keep me from it this 
time ; ” and she went. 

Miss Payne heard the story, contritely told, 
and looked very grave indeed. 

“ I am exceedingly sorry to hear this, Eliz- 
abeth. You know how strict our rule is about 
going outside the grounds; and to think of 
your going out that way at night ! I fear I 
shall have to punish you severely. I must 
ask you not to go out with the other pupils 
on Saturday afternoons for the rest of the 
term. And you,” she added, turning to 
Lois, “must not go out for a month;” and 
with some kind words she dismissed the two 
humbled girls. 

The teacher who took Miss Leet’s place 
was Miss Spice — to the roommates her 
name was suggestive of pleasant home cheer 
— a wholesome, practical, intellectual woman 


BETTY BAIRD 


184 

of sterling character, with the saving graces 
of humor and sympathy. The pupils at once 
dubbed her “ spice cake.” 

A few days after her arrival Miss Greene 
invited her to her room, and over a friendly 
cup of tea they fell to discussing the pupils 
whom Miss Spice was eager to understand 
in order to do effective work. Betty, always 
interesting to Miss Greene, occupied a large 
part of their conversation. 

“You will find her decidedly deficient in 
mathematics. Miss Leet’s antagonism in- 
creased her natural distaste. We are all 
anxious to have her improve, for it is the 
only branch in which she is behind her class. 
If you can win her regard she will work hard 
to please you, for she is a conscientious stu- 
dent as well as a devoted friend,” Miss 
Greene explained. 

“ Her bright face attracted me,” replied 
Miss Spice, “and I wondered at her failure 
in the class. I shall be doubly interested 
in her now. I judge she is a born leader.” 

“ She seems to care very little for manag- 
ing people or affairs, but she is fond of the 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 185 

picturesque and poetic. Her chief power 
lies in doing things in a way different from 
the humdrum, and girls like it. Then, too, 
she enters heart and soul into everything she 
undertakes and inspires others. There is no 
gray in her color scheme; she deals in the 
primaries.” 

“ I shall enjoy seeing what I can do for 
her,” said Miss Spice, enthusiastically ; then 
the conversation drifted to other topics. 

In algebra Miss Spice found Betty atten- 
tive but puzzled. Her talk with Miss Greene 
had shown her the trouble and she soon 
settled on a remedy. Having won Betty’s 
confidence she drilled her thoroughly, not 
only in class, but often during the study hour 
in her own room, reviewing the lessons with 
her from the beginning. Betty worked hard, 
devoting every spare moment to the detested 
study, with the result that she passed an ex- 
amination with credit to both teacher and 
pupil. 

The last week of the school year Betty 
and Lois spent together in the shadowy old 


i86 


BETTY BAIRD 


park where, arm in arm, they loitered through 
the shady paths, reading and dreaming and 
loving the great, beautiful, summer world. 
To the young girls this was an enchanted 
place, and ever, as they walked there, they 
carried with them the little red and gold 
morocco volume which expressed the things 
they loved most to talk about. The “ Idyls 
of the King ” spoke to them of castles and 
tournaments, of bold knights and glorious 
chivalry, while the very atmosphere seemed 
to hold the promise of something impending. 

For hours they wandered in the quaint 
old garden, tucked away in a corner of the 
great park, where the weather-beaten sun- 
dial, in the midst of the boxwood and old- 
time flowers, greeted them with the gracious 
assurance which symphonized well with their 
own feelings, 

“ I chronicle only the sunny hours.” 

Tears ran down the cheeks of the girls as 
they read the parting words of the stricken 
Arthur to his few faithful retainers, — 

“ The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 


A FEAST — NEW TEACHER 187 

Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 
Shall never more, at any future time, 

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 

Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.” 

“I can’t bear it; it’s so sad and sweet,” 
said Lois, as the silent tears fell unheeded. 

“ This seems like Camelot,” said Betty, 
dreamily, after a long silence. “ It was a 
barren stretch of land ; on the one side was 
the ocean and on the other a great water ; 
and the moon was full.” 

So earnest were they that they missed the 
humor of comparing this beautiful park with 
that barren strip of sand. 

It was in those balmy days, as the friends 
walked through the dim paths, that the 
dream came to Betty of founding a knightly 
order for good and gentle deeds. With shin- 
ing eyes she spoke to Lois of the growing 
impulse. 

“ Oh, we must revive the spirit of chivalry, 
Lois. It is too beautiful to pass away for- 
ever. I, for one, believe in knighthood.” 


XIV 


MISS jane’s “ SEED PICTER ” 

IS and Betty had grown more and 



more intimate as the months passed, 


and, to their delight, Mr. Byrd had 
acceded to Mrs. Baird’s urgent invitation 
to have Lois spend part of her vacation at 
Weston. So their parting was not such a 
sad matter as it might otherwise have proved, 
and Betty reached home on a bright June 
evening, warm and dirty, but joyous in the 
anticipation of a long, happy summer. 

“ It ’s so good to be at home, mother,” she 
kept repeating. Her father was pleased 
with her glowing accounts of the school. 

“ It is indeed gratifying, Elizabeth, to hear 
from our cousin that you received the highest 
marks in your class,” he remarked. “She 
seems to think you are a prodigy in Latin. 
I trust, though, that this commendation will 
not conduce to any unworthy pride.” 


JANE’S -SEED PICTER” 189 

“ No, indeed,” laughed Betty, “ for she 
said it was not at all surprising when you 
were my teacher.” Doctor Baird looked 
gratified and smiled complacently. 

“ How did you manage to come up so in 
algebra } ” asked her mother. 

“ Oh, as I wrote to you, that horrid Miss 
Leet left. We simply made her go. The 
dearest little teacher came in her place. 
She is the kind that makes stupid girls 
learn in spite of themselves, and I suppose 
that accounts for my progress. But really, I 
was ashamed to go into her classes unpre- 
pared, I liked her so much.” 

“ It seems like a miracle,” said her mother, 
not without a motherly disdain of any hint 
of stupidity in her offspring. 

On Betty’s first evening home. Elder Hug- 
gentugler came in. He was the oldest officer 
in the church, a thin, stooped little man, with 
shrewd black eyes and a megaphone voice. 
He was very loyal to his pastor. A “ stick- 
in-the-mud,” he called himself, proud of his 
old-fashionedness. He seemed to have a 
lurking idea that his conservatism kept 


190 


BETTY BAIRD 


this old world from flying off at a tan- 
gent. Warming to reminiscences he said 
to Betty, — 

“ I was an elder in this church before your 
daddy here was born, yes I was ; ” and he 
shook his head argumentatively. 

“ You have seen a great many changes. 
Elder,” said Mrs. Baird. 

“ Changes, Mum ! Aye, that I have. 
They were a dumb lot here, when I came 
over from Yeller Crick. I teached ’em every- 
thing. I was elder, sexton, Sabbath-School 
superintendent; and I read from the Holy 
Book when floods kep’ the preacher away.” 

“ Did n’t they have a regular pastor in 
those days. Elder } ” asked Betty. 

“ Bless you, no, child. We had to be sat- 
isfied with preachin’ once a month, as the 
preacher had seven or eight churches to 
minister to. He had to ride from one to the 
other on horseback, and, when the water was 
high, he often could n’t ford the streams. 
Then we had to go without any preachin’. 
Many ’s the night I ’ve stayed up to daybreak, 
keepin’ floatin’ trees and logs from breakin’ 


JANE’S “SEED PICTER” 191 

down my cabin, loanin’ out of an upstairs 
window and pushin’ them away with a long 
pole.” 

“ How exciting ! ” exclaimed Betty. 

“ Excitin’ ! My child, there is nothin’ as 
steelthy and tetchy as a crick, except — ” 
and his fist came down with an emphatic 
blow on the table “ — except church music 
committees.” 

Doctor and Mrs. Baird exchanged amused 
glances, for they knew what to expect. 

“ Would you believe it, Betty,” he contin- 
ued, “ — ’t was long before you was born, — 
they brought an organ into the church right 
under my nose ? ” and again his knotted hand 
thumped the table. He looked around for 
sympathy, fully believing they all thought as 
he did, for he blamed only the music com- 
mittee for introducing “ that devil’s music,” 
as he called it. 

“ Well,” he continued more calmly, “ I got 
even with them. Before that cussed thing 
was brought into the sanctuary, I was always 
the first there for the meetin’. I seen after 
many thihgs. Now I don’t darken the door 


BETTY BAIRD 


192 

until that screech owl stops;” and the old 
man chuckled. 

Early the next morning the Elder rapped 
loudly at the back door with his cane, calling 
Betty. She came running out to meet him, 
her fair hair and pretty white dress flying in 
the breeze. 

“ Why, good morning. Elder,” she cried 
delightedly ; and the old man’s heart warmed 
anew to her, for he had long been alone. 

“ Morning, Betty,” he answered cheerfully. 
“ I fetched a poke o’ posies for your garden. 
Last night, on my way home, I was thinkin’ 
you ’d be uneasy after bein’ so busy gettin’ 
book lamin’, and thinks I, ‘ Flowers is com- 
panions to wimmen folks,’ and you have a 
goodly space here for ’em,” waving his hand 
over the garden. He had taken off his old 
soft hat, uncovering his thick white hair, 
neatly parted far down on the right side. He 
was very clean and sweet-looking in spite of 
his old coat. Though he had “ money in 
the bank,” as his poor neighbors said, he 
rarely bought new clothes. The child, in her 
freshness and beauty, and the gentle old man 


JANE’S “SEED PICTER” 193 

formed a charming picture in Mrs. Baird’s 
eyes, as she watched them go together into 
the old-fashioned garden and stand by the 
ancient well sweep. He was telling Betty 
his old, old grievance. 

“ They even wanted to take this away once. 
Yes, and all them little panes of glass in 
the windows there ! They carc’l’ated to take 
’em out and put in big blazin’ things, all one 
piece. Why, they was impident lookin’, good 
enough for them Robinsons down there — ” 
and he flipped his thumb disdainfully in the 
direction of the benighted neighbors, “ — 
dancin’ and card playin’ folks, but not for a 
preacher of the everlastin’ gospel.” 

“ I am glad you did n’t let them do it. 
Elder. It would have been an awful shame 
to take away that old well sweep. And one 
of my teachers tells me those little panes 
of glass are all the fashion now for certain 
kinds of houses. We have them at our 
school.” 

“ Ye don’t say so ! ” ejaculated the old 
man. “ Well, well, well ! What ’s the world 
cornin’ to ! But I believe I did hear that 


13 


194 BETTY BAIRD 

them old mehogany cheers and tables is all 
the style.” 

“Yes, indeed, Elder. People pay awfully 
high prices for chairs like my grandmother’s.” 

“ That I should live to see the day ! Why, 
Betty, they wanted your mother to sell that 
mehogany sideboard and get a little, teeterin’ 
yeller thing. S’ I, ‘ Don’t you do it, Mrs. 
Baird. It ’s been good for more ’n a hunderd 
years, and it’s good enough now.’ Yes, I 
did.” 

Betty not only enjoyed taking care of the 
flowers in the garden, but she extended her 
activities to the house, where she tried to 
follow out the ideas she had gathered from 
Miss Greene, whose chief recreation was the 
study of artistic home decoration. 

The manse parlor, which the church com- 
mittee, in a burst of artistic enthusiasm, 
had furnished the year before, especially 
demanded all her newly acquired knowl- 
edge. The fact that the room had four 
sunny windows had not affected the plans 
of that final court of appeals in matters 
of taste and appropriateness. Yellow was 


JANE’S - SEED PICTER” 195 

fashionable that year, and the room was 
therefore furnished in as many varieties of 
that color as the committee could find space 
for ; the walls were covered with paper hav- 
ing large gold figures on a white ground ; 
the floor was protected by a carpet present- 
ing a lemon ground, over which trailed a 
design of small red roses ; the furniture 
was upholstered in brilliant orange brocade 
satin ; the windows had buff shades. On a 
sunny day the effect was sulphurous; but 
the pride of the committee in the result of 
its work diminished not a jot or a tittle. 

Betty asked her mother’s permission to 
cover the glaring satin with pretty figured 
cretonne, a white ground with a design of tiny 
green leaves rioting over it, and to put up 
some soft curtains that greatly subdued the 
glare. They then went over the room care- 
fully, selecting the pictures that would give 
the most restful feeling, and putting on the 
mantelpiece a squat green vase and a pair of 
silver candlesticks. After their labors were 
finished, they sat in the parlor congratulat- 
ing themselves on its appearance, for the 


196 BETTY BAIRD 

first time since the church showered its 
golden blessings on it. 

“ There is n’t an objectionable thing in the 
room now. Such a piece of luck that those 
wax flowers Mrs. Davis gave us happened 
to fall and break into smithereens ! ” exulted 
Betty. 

“ Yes, for I should have had to leave them 
in,” answered her mother. “ We can’t afford 
to hurt people’s kind feelings, no matter 
how much they hurt our artistic ones.” 

“ They were too much for me, the garish, 
ghostly things ! But do look there, mother. 
Miss Jane and the Elder are coming in with 
a package, an immense one. What do you 
suppose it is ? ” and Betty hurried to the door. 

Miss Jane brushed flusteredly by her, 
bidding the Elder to bring the large square 
bundle into the house. With a bare nod, 
she unwrapped the package with eager fin- 
gers and displayed a remarkable object. 
From a background of common pasteboard 
stood out in strong black letters of some 
curious material, the words, “ There is no 
place like Home ; ” above, below, to the 


JANE’S “SEED PICTER” 197 

right, to the left, were various designs : gates 
ajar, wreaths, scrolls, broken hearts, crosses 
and crowns, each in a different color, and 
surrounding all a heavy wreath of dismal 
black. This wonderful creation, of a mate- 
rial as yet unknown to Betty and her mother, 
was enclosed in a heavy dead-black frame, 
broad and deep ; the whole, perhaps a yard 
and a quarter square. 

“There, sir!” exclaimed Miss Jane, tri- 
umphantly. “ Even if you was to boardin’ 
school a hull year, you never saw the beat 
of that I ” and she beamed on Betty, snap- 
ping her long fingers at the mournful object. 

“What is it. Miss Jane.f^” asked Mrs. 
Baird. 

“ There, I knowed it I It ’s a seed picter. 
Everythin’ there is seeds, apple seeds, orange 
seeds, lemon seeds, sunflower seeds, water- 
melon seeds, cowcumber seeds, all kinds of 
seeds is there ; ” and she looked at Betty for 
some sign of her characteristic enthusiasm. 

“ It ’s wonderful ! ” sighed the latter, over 
whom was creeping the blighting fear that it 
was for her. 


198 BETTY BAIRD 

“Wonderful!” said Miss Jane, testily. 
“ There ain’t nothin’ like it to The Pines, I 
carc’l’ate.” 

“ No, there is n’t,” agreed Betty, in an al- 
most inaudible voice. Miss Jane, mistaking 
the cause of her emotion, looked immensely 
pleased. 

“ It ’s for you, ’Lizbeth,” she announced. 

“ Oh, Miss Jane I ” cried the girl, tears 
suffusing her eyes, tears that were the result 
of horror at the object and heart-ache at Miss 
Jane’s goodness. Miss Jane was touched. 

“ I knowed you was just sot on purty 
things, so I tried to think of somethin’ reel 
nice, not a dumb present like a — oh, you 
know — so I made this here picter. No one 
but me knows how, so there ain’t another in 
the state. You ’d hev to go fur to find one.” 

“That’s right, you certny would,” agreed 
the Elder. Betty, laughing and crying, threw 
her arms around Miss Jane and laid her head 
on her shoulder. 

“ Oh, Miss Jane, how could you spend all 
that time for me ? ” Miss Jane had a mo- 
mentary shamefacedness ; then she bright- 


JANE’S - SEED PICTER” 199 

ened as she looked around and saw that 
the furniture had been covered. 

“You deserves it fer cov’rin’ all them fine 
sating cheers. So savin’ iox you, ’Liz’beth!” 

“ Oh, as to that — ” began Betty, but 
her mother interrupted, drawing Miss Jane’s 
attention to the picture. 

“ Why did you take all your precious time 
making it for that child } It ’s the kindest 
thing I ever knew.” 

“ Well, I thought she ’d miss all them 
purty things at The Pines, so I jest made 
that. Once a gal knows, she ’s apt to grow 
dissatisfied.” Miss Jane looked around for a 
suitable place for the seed picture, and de- 
cided that the gilt mirror should come down 
from above the white mantelpiece to make 
room for it. There it remained, to the con- 
stant pride and joy of Miss Jane and the 
Elder. Betty did not feel, as Miss Jane in- 
timated, that virtue had received its own 
proper reward. Sadly she took the mirror 
out of the room and put it over the sitting- 
room mantel, determined to make that room 
the object of her artistic efforts in the future. 


XV 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 

A fter a year at boarding school, 
Betty’s first Sunday at home was an 
interesting experience, for her life 
had hitherto, in a measure, been centred 
in the church ; so going to the pretty little 
brick edifice that morning was like a second 
home coming. Dressed in a simple pique 
suit, bought in New York, and with a 
white chip hat crowning her fair head, her 
face bright and sweet with gay and tender 
interest, she was a picture which drew many 
eyes to the minister’s pew, and made Miss 
Jane reproach herself for a sinful, wandering 
mind, because hers dwelt so easily and gladly 
on the girl, when her soul needed the father’s 
admonitions. 

To Betty the day was too full for thought; 
she loved everybody and everything; every 
familiar face and sound thrilled her with a 


new meaning. 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 201 

“ It is so good to be at home,” they 
seemed to say, and all the summer this 
endearing insight lent a charm to every 
commonplace experience ; but through it 
ran the new and vivifying emotions that her 
life and study at The Pines had given her. 
The Order that she and Lois had talked of 
during those long days in the garden was 
in the background of her thoughts. In her 
father’s library she found an old volume on 
the “ History of the Crusades,” and it was 
seldom out of her hands. The beauty 
and romance of those olden days appealed 
strongly to the impressionable girl of fifteen, 
but mingled with them also was a keen 
appreciation of the glory to be found in 
Miss Jane’s humble life of service. 

She used to take her little brown leather 
book and go into her Rose Retreat, as she 
had named that part of their garden where 
the roses grew in wild profusion over a trellis 
and shaded a gray old rock and small rustic 
seat. A high arbor-vitae hedge with a nar- 
row opening ran around this corner and gave 
it still more seclusion. Here she would sit, 


202 


BETTY BAIRD 


with her elbow on the rock, her face earnest 
with the spell of the old valiant days. Peter 
the Hermit, Robert, and Godfrey, became as 
real to her as Elder Huggentugler and Mr. 
Dinkum. The long summer days were full 
of the ardor of the times of the Crusades and 
the grace and nobility of knight-errantry. 
But the Order was no more than a pleasant 
reverie until that day late in June, when the 
past and present mingled in her thoughts, 
as she studied her Sunday-School lesson. 

Betty was tired of her Sunday-School class, 
which, in the summer dearth of teachers, the 
superintendent had asked her to take, deem- 
ing her general intelligence and her position 
as the pastor’s daughter, together with the 
aid her mother cheerfully promised, to be 
sufficient justification for his unusual course 
in asking such a young girl. She had la- 
bored faithfully to bring from the lessons 
some helpful instruction for the members of 
the class, girls near her own age ; but a 
baffled feeling, a realization that the teach- 
ing of abstract truths was not her forte, was 
the invariable result. 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 203 

This day she studied with especial earnest- 
ness and conscientiousness ; she memorized 
the golden text, Mark ix. 41 ; “ For whosoever 
shall give you a cup of water to drink in my 
name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I 
say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” 
She read the verses again and again, but 
not a thought came to her. At last she 
threw down her lesson leaf with something 
like disgust. 

“ Oh, I can’t see a thing in it for those 
youngsters. A cup of water! How in the 
world can they do that ? I give it up. I am 
going to tell Mr. Marley that he ’ll have to 
get some one else.” 

Thoroughly disheartened, she took up her 
“ History of the Crusades ” and tried to 
read, but somehow there kept ringing in her 
ears, “a cup of water, a cup of water.” 

“ Now what can that mean ? A cup of 
water? Anybody can have a cup of water; 
it’s such a common thing to talk about — 
oh, I wonder if He could have meant that 
we should do the little, everyday kindnesses 
in His name.” 


BETTY BAIRD 


204 

She leaned back in her seat, her eyes 
closed, her face radiant, her “ History of the 
Crusades ” clasped in her hands. 

“ Yes,” she whispered, “ the Order of The 
Cup, the Order of The Cup; to give a cup of 
water in His name; to do the little everyday 
kindnesses to our neighbors ! ” 

She knew now how she would teach that 
lesson ; it would be more than theory. The 
ten girls in her class would help her, if she 
only put it right Miss Greene and Miss 
Spice were, she knew, interested in settle- 
ment work in New York, and Miss Spice 
taught there evenings. They were now 
raising money to send poor children to the 
country or seaside for a day or more. Why 
could n’t she and her class help, giving a cup 
of water in this way.? Her cheeks were 
afire with excitement as she thought of the 
beautiful possibility of doing something for 
them. Her home was only a few hours’ ride 
from the city; perhaps some day she could 
have them there ; but she would go step by 
step and see if she could not raise money 
somehow for those children’s outing; eleven 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 205 

children for one day at the seaside ! “ The 

Order of The Cup,” she said to herself; “that ’s 
better than Chivalry and Crusades.” She 
would band her girls together and form an 
order, and ask Lois and Edith to join it, 
and every one who was willing to give a cup 
of water. Her ideas grew as she dwelt on 
the plan. Yes! they would give a festival 
in her Rose Retreat and sell ice-cream and 
cake and lemonade, and send the money to 
Miss Greene and Miss Spice. 

On Sunday, in her enthusiastic way, she 
told the girls her plan for putting into prac- 
tice the golden text. They were at once in- 
tensely interested; their generous young 
hearts responded eagerly as she depicted the 
duty and glory of serving others, and im- 
pressed on them that the Order would mean 
the doing of simple, little, everyday things, 
not the dreaming of doing something large 
and to them impossible. Out of a full heart 
she dwelt long and earnestly on the spirit in 
which the cup of water should be given; 
perhaps the cup would be only the cheerful 
doing of some disagreeable daily task, or the 


2o6 


BETTY BAIRD 


remembering to say “ Thank you ” sincerely. 
In closing, she held up what should be the ideal 
of the Order in the words of Wordsworth, — 

“ ‘ That best portion of a good man’s life, — 

His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love.’ ” 

Mrs. Baird was delighted that Betty’s 
unclaimed activity had taken such a direc- 
tion. Seeing that the springs of the move- 
ment were pure and unselfish, she encouraged 
and watched over this budding altruism, know- 
ing that one cannot too soon learn the lesson 
of service for others. 

Edith came home from a visit to her grand- 
mother and entered heartily into the spirit of 
the Order and the plans for raising money 
for the Settlement by means of a festival. 
Betty ordered a dozen badges of aluminum 
in the shape of a cup, with the words, “ Order 
of The Cup ” in a scroll beneath. As these 
were made in town their cost was small. 
She and the children wore them, much, it 
must be confessed, to the envy of the other 
children, who, however, were promised admit- 
tance to the Order as soon as it was fully 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 207 

organized and a constitution framed. All 
over the village were posted notices of the 
festival, which the members of the Order 
made with rubber type, every one bearing a 
picture of the symbolic Cup and the motto 
they had taken for their own, “ Ut Possim',' 
“ As I am able.” The enthusiasm in the 
Order was great, and Lois came to Weston 
to visit Betty and help with the festival. 

The lonely girl’s pathetic joy at being in a 
house where the lovely home ways were pre- 
served impressed on Mrs. Baird the fact 
that not only the poor but the rich needed 
the offices of the new and flourishing Order 
of The Cup; and her heart warmed to the 
pretty, gentle maiden. Lois at once became 
an ardent member of the Order, and had a 
hundred badges made at her own expense, to 
be sold to those who joined it, the money 
going to the fund for the city children. 

It was not made to(p easy to become one 
of the Order. Admission was granted only 
after the applicant had given some evidences 
of her sincerity; then, with simple ceremo- 
nies, she took a vow to do “ as she was 


2o8 


BETTY BAIRD 


able.” Membership was limited to girls 
under twenty, though later they had an 
Advisory Committee of older people, espe- 
cially the clergymen of the town. Any 
reputable person could, by paying a small 
fee, become an honorary member. The sole 
aim of the Order was personal service ; to 
do all one was able to do for others, espe- 
cially in small things. By banding together 
they would be able to do this more effectu- 
ally, for enthusiasm would be more readily 
kindled and all efforts reinforced by numbers. 

The festival was well advertised and every 
detail was thought out in advance by the 
members. The local press was supplied by 
Betty with copious notices — not unwelcome 
to the country editor — and the object of the 
festival was graphically set forth. Contribu- 
tions of cakes, ice-cream, lemons, candy, and 
other supplies came in abundance, and table- 
cloths were lent by interested mothers. 

The momentous day came. From early 
morning Betty and Lois worked valiantly, 
helped by the other members, and when 
dusk fell they could not repress a happy 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 209 

crow of satisfaction over the result. Every- 
thing was ready. The tables were attrac- 
tively decorated with Japanese napkins in 
pretty patterns, with here and there large 
bowls of fresh cut roses and, in Weston eyes, 
the master touch, — dainty place-cards, 
painted with smart little ladies’ heads, at 
each plate. The girls had learned to paint 
these at The Pines. Colored lanterns hung 
everywhere through the garden, and with the 
coming of darkness the great round moon 
looked down on a place of real enchantment, 
while from shadowy corners soft strains of 
music filled the air. 

The members of the Order waited on the 
tables. They were all dressed in simple 
white, with rosebuds in their hair, their Cup 
badges worn conspicuously on their left 
shoulders, from which fell streamers of 
violet ribbon, the color of the Order. Mrs. 
Baird, with characteristic benevolence, de- 
voted her time and energy to seeing that no 
one was overlooked. Elder Huggentugler 
was master of ceremonies and, determined 
that his pet’s venture should be a success, 
14 


210 


BETTY BAIRD 


treated right and left; while Miss Jane was 
immeasurably puffed up by her elevation to 
the proud eminence of the cashier’s desk, 
where each coin, as it was paid in, carried 
to her its message that “ ’Lizbeth was 
certny whoopin’ things up t’-night.” 

The Elder’s eyes proudly followed Betty’s 
every motion, and once, when she had a 
spare moment to hang on his arm and con- 
fide to him her dreams of the Order, he felt 
as proud as though the President of the 
United States had entrusted him with a 
great state secret. 

After all was over it was pronounced the 
most beautiful festival ever given in Weston, 
an “ evening long to be remembered,” in the 
words of The Weston Gazette. The Order 
cleared eighty-five dollars, and this with 
the fifteen dollars realized from the sale of 
badges made one hundred dollars, which 
they sent at once to Miss Spice in a violet 
envelope, with the compliments of The 
Order of The Gup and the hope that it 
would enable a large number of poor city 
children to enjoy the balmy breezes and 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 211 


other delights of the seaside for one day at 
least. 

The Order waxed large and prosperous 
until, with a chapter in each church in the 
town, its membership included nearly all the 
young girls in Weston. Naturally, such a 
movement attracted the attention of the 
pastors of the village, and at the next meet- 
ing of the Ministerial Association it pro- 
voked a good deal of informal discussion. 

“ I feel. Doctor Baird,” said Mr. Black of 
the Baptist church, “ that your daughter’s 
enthusiasm and indomitable energy, com- 
bined with her firm hold on the affections 
of her young friends, have made it a move- 
ment of power, and that it has elements of 
permanency, even though it is carried on by 
the young.” 

“ They are growing older every year, and 
the church needs the young,” responded 
Doctor Baird, pleased with this appreciation 
of his daughter’s ability. 

“ But,” said Mr. Wells of the Methodist 
church, “isn’t there something fantastic 
about it, its name, for instance 


212 


BETTY BAIRD 


“ Why, I consider that an inspiration,” re- 
joined Mr. Black. “We cannot expect 
young girls to go about prosaically organiz- 
ing a Home Missionary Society as we old 
fogies do. By all means let them have the 
poetic and picturesque.” 

“ True,” said the conservative Mr. Wells, 
as he thoughtfully adjusted his eye-glasses. 
“ My daughter is heart and soul in this Order, 
and her mother says the child has been quite 
changed through its means. I fear, though,” 
and he sighed, “ that I have grown hide- 
bound and cannot easily adjust myself to 
new-fangled things.” His smile was singu- 
larly pleasant and quite belied his words. 

“ For my part,” said Mr. Black, his young 
and sensitive face glowing, “ I rejoice in this 
awakening among the young to a sense of 
their privileges and obligations to those who 
are less fortunate. Of course the fundamen- 
tal idea of the organization is to help with 
little things, bright smiles, ready sympathy, 
answered letters, reading to the sick, seeing 
the good side of people, withholding from 
gossip, and a thousand and one little courte- 


THE ORDER OF THE CUP 213 

sies in the home and in society, — in a word, 
Christian courtesy.” 

“ My, oh, my!” laughed Mr. Golden of the 
Presbyterian church. “ Mr. Black is quite 
an enthusiast over it.” 

“ Because I have seen some of its results,” 
responded Mr. Black, warmly. “ Our Com- 
mittee on Flowers, for instance, has been 
made up of young girls, and in spite of every- 
thing they would at times fail us. They 
made one petty excuse after another. Last 
week was the turn of one of the most care- 
less members, and the chairman told me that 
she not only went to some trouble to procure 
fine flowers but took an interest in arranging 
them, and all so cheerfully. Of course Mrs. 
Wicks could not refrain from asking her 
what had changed her so. You know Mrs. 
Wicks’s way. She said, ‘ What do you think 
that fly-up-the-creek answered me? “I un- 
derstand my duty better now, Mrs. Wicks. 
I am a member of the Order of The Cup 
and I want to do all I am able to do.” ’ 
‘Order of the fiddlesticks’ was Mrs. Wicks’s 
amiable reply, but the girl only laughed and 


214 


BETTY BAIRD 


replied, ‘ Order of The Cup, if you please 
Mrs. Wicks.’ ” 

“ ‘ By their fruits ye shall know them,’ ” said 
another minister. “ Our church believes in 
interesting the young, and I shall encourage 
this.” 


XVI 

THE RETURN OF THE SHIPWRECKED MARINER 

F loods delayed the return of the 
roommates for several days, and they 
found the school in full swing:. The 
new girls were eager to see Betty. It often 
happens that, in a school full, one girl be- 
comes the object of the romantic interest 
of the others, and Betty chanced to hold this 
unique position in the little world at The 
Pines. Her treatment when she first came 
there, her subsequent triumphs, her success 
in her classes and in the play, and above all, 
her fertile leadership in picturesque adven- 
ture, were told and retold many times to the 
new girls and cast over her a captivating 
glamour of romance. 

The badges of the Order worn by Betty 
and Lois were noticed at once. 

“ What are you wearing those tin cups 
for ? ” asked the matter-of-fact Caroline, as 


2i6 


BETTY BAIRD 


she examined them with her cool scrutiny. 
Betty was aghast, and glanced in disgust at 
the stupid girl, while Lois, who did not take 
things to heart as deeply as Betty, laughed. 

“ Tin cup ! Can’t you read what is on the 
scroll .f*” demanded Betty, though she pulled 
away the badge so quickly that Caroline could 
not possibly read it. “ But it ’s casting pearls 
before — ” she continued haughtily, as she 
walked off in a temper. “ Tin cup, indeed ! ” 
Her cheeks flushed with offended pride. “ A 
prosaic tin cup ! ” and she walked on more 
rapidly until she found herself almost run- 
ning. A great chagrin filled her. All her 
symbols were read into mean characters by 
those around her; they were so sordid. 
Tears of vexation came into her angry eyes. 
As she went flying along, she heard some 
one say, with mirthful timidity, “ Atalanta.” 
She lifted her angry eyes, and there, standing 
directly in her path, hat in hand, was the 
Bishop’s grandson, Paul. A bright, pleased 
smile held the place of the half scornful, half 
patronizing look she had often surprised on 
his face. Her wrath fell several degrees, 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 217 

and she reached out her hand impulsively to 
his, while a new friendliness leaped into her 
tones. 

“ I am in a perfectly furious temper,” she 
announced, her smiling face at the minute 
belying her words. 

“ May I ask what it is all about ? ” he in- 
quired, and there was a boyish diffidence in 
his manner which she had never seen in the 
young student. She hesitated. The Order 
had grown dear to her, and she felt she could 
not bear any more, after the “ tin cup ” 
episode. What if he too should scoff at 
their Order.? She touched the badge, 
saying, — 

“ It is about this. Does it look like a — a 
— tin cup to you ? ” 

“ Certainly not. The proportions are alto- 
gether different.” 

She brightened visibly, though she looked 
a trifle ashamed. 

“Well, some one called it a — a tin cup, 
and I got — mad.” The childish word 
came out with all the old force, and Paul 
laughed. 


2i8 


BETTY BAIRD 


‘“As I am able,’ ” he translated signifi- 
cantly. 

“ I was not able to control my temper,” she 
answered, smiling. 

“ But what does the cup mean ? ” he in- 
sisted, as he examined the badge which she 
had handed to him. In her rapid fashion 
she told the history of the Order, while the 
young student held the badge with gentle 
fingers, his face crossed by varying expres- 
sions. No untimely jest came to spoil her 
enthusiasm, no frown aroused her antagon- 
ism. Miss Greene saw them from her win- 
dow and watched them curiously, wondering 
at their serious faces. 

After a short silence Paul said, “ It is all 
so beautiful that I am bereft of words to 
express how I feel about it. I want to be an 
honorary member some day.” 

“ I am so glad you understand,” said Betty, 
gratefully. 

“ I do,” he answered, “ and even associating 
it with a ‘ tin cup ’ does not spoil the idea for 
me. It enhances it. I should not care for 
one of gold or silver. The poor everyday, 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 219 

vessel becomes symbolic of commonplace 
words or acts, which are made beautiful by 
the spirit back of them.” 

“ Oh, how you have helped me ! ” cried 
Betty. “ It makes the Order clearer to me 
too. Some of the members wanted silver 
ones, but I had a feeling that something 
cheap and simple was more in keeping. 
Oh ! ” she exclaimed suddenly, “ I forgot all 
about it, but we are not allowed to talk with 
anybody on the campus who is n’t connected 
with the school.” 

“ Forgive me,” said Paul, “ for I spoke to 
you first.” 

“ How could you know the rules ? ” an- 
swered Betty, and then, in a relieved voice, 
“ There is Miss Greene beckoning to me. 
Please remember me to your grandfather,” 
she added, with a sudden prodding of her 
“ manners.” 

She hurried ahead of Paul, who was about 
to call on Miss Payne on an errand for his 
grandfather, and ran swiftly to Miss Greene s 
room and knocked softly. After opening 
the door in response to the invitation to 


220 


BETTY BAIRD 


come in, she hesitated on the threshold, for 
her conscience about little things had be- 
come more sensitive since she had estab- 
lished the Order. 

“ Come in ! Don’t pretend you are afraid,” 
said Miss Greene, genially ; and Betty shut 
the door with something of a bang, flew over 
to her and kissed her on both cheeks. 

“ No cajoling,” warned Miss Greene, in a 
caressing voice, as Betty sat down on a foot- 
stool by her side, her favorite seat, and held 
her soft hands in her own slim brown ones. 

“ How sunburned you are ! ” exclaimed 
Miss Greene. “You are your own ‘nut- 
brown maid.’ It is not unbecoming, either. 
But confess, now, about your conversation 
out there on the campus. I saw the lad stop 
you.” 

“ Indeed, indeed. Miss Greene, I forgot all 
about the rules until just before I saw you.” 

“ Before ” queried Miss Greene, teasingly. 

“ Yes, before ; really,” said Betty. 

“ Oh, of course I believe you, little rogue, 
though I have known you to break rules 
before without any apparent compunction.” 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 221 

“ Yes, but I let concealment, like a worm 
i’ the bud, feed on my damask cheek; I 
pined in thought. That may be the reason 
my conscience is so tender now.” 

“ The worm has not eaten away your quo- 
tations,” said Miss Greene, dryly, pinching 
her brown cheeks. “ Frankly, I thought you 
would come up here and justify yourself with 
a thousand ingenious arguments, but here 
you are confessing at once.” 

“ My rugged virtue makes you gasp, I see,” 
said Betty, teasingly; but by the time she 
had finished. Miss Greene had her hand over 
the pretty soft lips. 

“ Seriously, Elizabeth, why were you young 
folks so solemn ? If you had seemed happier 
I should have called you sooner, but I was 
restrained by the sight of your serious faces.” 

Betty was silent, and a faint color came to 
her cheeks as she played with Miss Greene’s 
ring. 

“ What means this new and painful reti- 
cence demanded Miss Greene, gayly. 

“ It is about our Order,” explained Betty, 
hesitatingly ; for she felt she could not bear 


222 


BETTY BAIRD 


to have her teacher fail to understand what 
had become vital to her. 

“ Oh, you mean the little society you had 
this summer, which raised all that money for 
our Settlement ? That was a capital idea of 
yours, Elizabeth,” she said heartily. 

“Yes, it was that but not all. We have 
organized permanently and taken the name 
The Order of The Cup, from those verses in 
the Bible about giving a cup of cold water 
in His name.” 

“ Oh,” said Miss Greene. She said no 
more, but she looked for a quiet moment 
out of the window. 

“ And here is our badge ! ” continued 
Betty, as she handed it to the teacher. 

“ Ut Possim,'' read the latter ; and she 
looked at the small symbol with the Bible 
reference, Mark ix. 41. Betty then told the 
whole history of the organization, while Miss 
Greene listened attentively without one in- 
terruption, watching the eager expression, 
the earnest eyes and voice, and seeing a 
change in the face not wholly due to sun- 
brown. 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 223 

“ A new meaning has come into her life 
and I must be careful not to disturb it,” she 
thought ; and she leaned over and kissed the 
young girl’s broad brow, putting back the 
soft hair from each side of the face, and hold- 
ing it between her hands. 

“ And so,” she said gayly but sweetly, “ this 
is what you have been doing while away 
from your old teacher. At any rate I can 
be an honorary member.” 

Betty clapped her hands with delight as 
she exclaimed, — 

“ Oh, will you join ? ” 

“ If I am able,” quoted Miss Greene. 
“ That is, if I can afford the dues.” 

“ I ’ll bring you a badge at once,” said 
Betty ; and she repeated Paul’s words about 
the tin cup. 

Through one of the chamber-maids, the 
roommates heard of an old lady, living in 
the village near the school, who was friendless 
and nearly blind. On further inquiries they 
learned that Mrs. Humphrey, for such was 
her name, had sufficient means to live ip 


224 


BETTY BAIRD 


some degree of comfort, but suffered greatly 
because her blindness deprived her of her 
life-long pleasure, reading. Betty at once 
proposed that they go and read to her. 
They consulted Miss Greene about it, and 
she readily consented to go with them to see 
if things were as represented, and, if so, she 
would secure permission from their parents 
for them to read to her once a week. There- 
fore, the following Saturday afternoon the 
three went to Mrs. Humphrey’s little house, 
which they found standing in the midst of a 
weedy plot of grass, surrounded by a tumble- 
down fence, everything on the outside bear- 
ing evidence of long neglect. But there was 
a promise of better things inside, in the sunny 
Swiss curtains at the windows and the cheer- 
ful pots of well-kept geraniums on the window- 
sills. 

In answer to their knock a tall, command- 
ing-looking woman, about sixty years of age, 
came to the door. She was still handsome, 
despite the evidences of suffering on her 
worn countenance, her hair was snowy white, 
plainly arranged, her dark eyes soft and gentle 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 225 

and lovely. The house was rather bare, but 
absolutely neat and homelike, a table and 
several chairs of fine design speaking of better 
days. Some pieces of old china at once 
captivated Miss Greene’s antiquarian fancy, 
and led to an easy and natural conversation. 
It was not difficult for the teacher then, in 
her frank, kind way, to tell the reason for 
their call; but Mrs. Humphrey, while evidently 
pleased, showed her appreciation with some 
reserve. She and Miss Greene found much 
in common, however, so that before the call 
came to an end she gladly consented to 
having the two young girls read to her the 
next Saturday. 

Before that day. Miss Greene saw the old 
lady’s pastor and learned all he knew about 
her history. Mrs. Humphrey and her hus- 
band had come into his parish two years 
before, with a letter from a church in the far 
South. They mingled little with others, and 
were apparently suffering from a deep sorrow, 
the cause of which was unknown, though the 
pastor said he had reason to believe it was due 
to the death of a son. After the husband’s 


15 


226 


BETTY BAIRD 


death, about a year since, Mrs. Humphrey 
had failed physically, and her eyesight had 
gone almost entirely. She politely but firmly 
refused to discuss her affairs, and her reserve 
had alienated the few people she had met. 

The next Saturday Betty and Lois, taking 
a new book of cheerful tone, went to Mrs. 
Humphrey’s cottage. She was charmed 
with the fresh young voices and laughed 
heartily at the bright passages in the story. 
While they waited a little for Betty’s voice 
to rest, Mrs. Humphrey told them several 
amusing stories, and in return Betty described 
an old churchyard at home where there were 
many curious epitaphs. One especially de- 
lighted her. The large lot had four flat 
stones in memory of a man and his three 
wives. On the first stone was inscribed, 
“ Sacred to conjugal affection and to the 
memory of Joanna, wife of Hezekiah Horn- 
swogler.” The second contained, 

“ Insatiate archer, 

Would not one suffice?’’ 

On the third was 

“ Thy shaft flew thrice, 

And thrice my peace was slain.” 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 227 

Mrs. Humphrey smilingly contributed an- 
other anecdote, and so, laughing together, 
they became good friends. 

“ I thank you much for coming,” said Mrs. 
Humphrey, as they were leaving. “This is 
the pleasantest afternoon I have had for a 
long time. I shall expect you next Saturday 
afternoon.” 

“ Oh, we have enjoyed it so much,” re- 
sponded the girls, “and you may be sure 
we ’ll be here bright and early next week.” 

True to their promise, they were there 
bright and early the next Saturday and the 
following ones, bringing much cheer to the 
lonely, bereaved woman ; and in return hear- 
ing the most fascinating tales of Southern 
life before and during the great civil war. 
Not a small item of the attractiveness of the 
little cottage to the girls was the snowy 
Southern biscuit and Mrs. Humphrey’s own 
orange marmalade, which she regularly 
provided for them. It perhaps never oc- 
curred to the girls that probably they 
would n’t have stuck so nobly to their al- 
truistic undertaking had it not been for 


228 


BETTY BAIRD 


these toothsome dainties and the exciting 
war-time tales. 

Several weeks after their first visit they 
were having their usual good time, reading 
and eating and telling stories, when Mrs. 
Humphrey took a letter from a little shelf 
over the window and handed it to Betty. 

“ I am sorry to trouble you, dear, but may 
I ask you to read this letter for me ? I have 
had it for some time, but my eyes have been 
so bad lately that I can’t make it out.” 

“ I am not very good at deciphering strange 
handwriting, but I ’ll do my best,” said Betty, 
as she took the blurred and almost illegible 
letter, postmarked Bombay, India. 

“ ‘ Dear Madam,’ ” she began, reading very 
slowly, “ T — take — pleasure — in — in — in — ’ 
what ’s that word ? ‘ — in — informing — you 
that — ’ I can’t make out that name. It ’s 
some one’s name, Mrs. Humphrey. Have 
you any relative or friend in Bombay ? ” 

“Oh, no, my child. I am alone, utterly 
alone. But I wonder what it could be ; from 
Bombay, you say.?” she asked in some ex- 
citement. 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 229 

“Yes, from Bombay, Mrs. Humphrey. 
And this is some one’s name — I can’t make 
it out.” 

“ I don’t know whose it could be. My 
only son was lost at sea and my husband 
died a year ago, and they were all I had in 
the world.” 

“ What was your son’s name ? ” asked 
Betty, sympathetically. 

“ Mortimer, dear.” 

“ Oh, what a pretty name,” exclaimed Betty, 
then resumed her attempt to decipher the 
letter. One look, and she gave a start and 
turned pale. 

“Will you excuse me, Mrs. Humphrey, if 
I take this outside so I can see it better ? ” 
asked Betty, much agitated as she motioned 
Lois to follow her. Mrs. Humphrey was 
rocking in her chair, forgetful of them for 
the moment, as she mourned over her lost 
ones. Once outside Betty grasped Lois’s arm 
until she winced, as she said, — 

“ Oh, Lois, it ’s Mortimer, I ’m sure it ’s 
Mortimer; and it says he’s coming home 
this month ! What shall we do ? Oh, I 


BETTY BAIRD 


230 

wish Miss Greene was here ! I ’m afraid to 
tell Mrs. Humphrey.” 

“ Here comes Miss Greene now,” said Lois, 
in an intense whisper; and they both sped 
down the path to meet her. Excitedly Betty 
told her the story, and thrust the letter into 
her hand, saying, — 

“ It does say Mortimer is coming, does n’t 
it. Miss Greene.? Oh, do say he is coming. 
Mrs. Humphrey thinks he was lost in a ship- 
wreck. If it is Mortimer, it must be Mrs. 
Humphrey’s son and — ” 

“ Certainly that word is Mortimer,” an- 
swered Miss Greene. 

“ Oh, then Mrs. Humphrey’s son, who was 
shipwrecked and died at sea, is coming home 
this month ! ” she exclaimed, as she whisked 
Lois up the path. 

Miss Greene, though puzzled, saw from 
Betty’s excited manner and incoherent words 
that something of importance had happened. 

“ Sit down here on the step, Betty, and 
try to calm yourself while I read this over 
again so there will be no doubt as to its 
meaning.” 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 231 

Miss Greene read and re-read the letter 
carefully before she said, — 

“ It certainly says that her son Mortimer 
is coming home this month. This will be 
glorious news to her, but I must break it to 
her gently.” 

As they entered the room Miss Greene 
greeted her cheerfully, recalling her from her 
sad memories and bringing her mind back to 
the letter which, for the time, she had for- 
gotten. 

“ How do you do, Miss Greene ? ” she said. 
“ I am glad to see you. I was just telling 
these dear children about my boy Mortimer.” 

“ Did I understand that he was lost at sea, 
Mrs. Humphrey?” asked Miss Greene. 

“ He was wrecked in the Indian Ocean 
two years ago, and the boat that he and 
several others got away in was never heard 
of asrain, thouo'h two others reached land 
safely.” 

“ Are you sure that his boat was never 
heard of again ? ” urged Miss Greene. 

“ Oh, Miss Greene, I have had no news of 
any kind. I read the papers every day until 


BETTY BAIRD 


232 

three months ago when my eyes failed, and 
nothing has ever been heard of them, not a 
thing.” 

“ But you know, Mrs. Humphrey, that 
sailors are often saved after the most un- 
dreamed-of experiences and long after their 
relatives have given them up for dead.” 

“ I know, I know,” said Mrs. Humphrey, 
despondently. “ But if Mortimer had been 
saved I should have known it before this time. 
He surely would have sent me word some- 
how.” 

“ But, Mrs. Humphrey, I know of a case 
very much like yours, where a sailor was 
wrecked and all on board were reported lost. 
After drifting around for several weeks, they 
were picked up by a whaling vessel that did not 
return from its cruise for over a year. Then 
this boy of whom I am speaking was taken 
sick in a foreign land, and could not send any 
word to his mother for long months after she 
believed him dead.” 

She stopped, for Mrs. Humphrey looked at 
her with a startled expression. The letter 
said something about some one coming to 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 233 

see her ! Her breath came in gasps and she 
could only say, “ Go on, go on ! ” 

“ After this boy had been sick a long time,” 
continued Miss Greene, “ a friend of his wrote 
to his mother that he was coming home, and 
that he would see her soon, on — on the — ” 
and Miss Greene hesitated, not knowing how 
much she dared say, for Mrs. Humphrey was 
gazing at her in anguished expectation. 

“In October.?” she asked in a faint 
whisper. 

Miss Greene nodded affirmatively as she 
pointed to the letter. 

“ Oh, it can’t be ! My boy, my boy ! ” cried 
Mrs. Humphrey, as she dropped on her knees 
and buried her face in Miss Greene’s lap, 
sobbing out her heart. 

Betty and Lois, who had been held fasci- 
nated by the romance of the scene, now stole 
out of the house and, hand in hand, hurried 
to their room, and closed the door without 
uttering a word. 

The next week when the girls went to 
Mrs. Humphrey’s cottage they found her 
radiantly happy. With her was a tall, noble- 


BETTY BAIRD 


234 

looking, sunburned young man, whom she 
introduced as her son Mortimer. The girls, 
fearful of intruding, would have hurried 
away, but the son, when he learned that 
they were the two who had been instru- 
mental in informing his mother of his home- 
coming, insisted that they should remain to 
hear the story of his shipwreck and rescue, 
which they were delighted to do. 

Three years before, he had sailed as first 
mate in a ship bound for India and China, 
with an assorted cargo of “ Yankee notions.” 
When they had disposed of them they started 
on the return trip with a full load of Oriental 
goods, and were progressing finely when they 
were caught in one of those terrific typhoons 
characteristic of the Indian Ocean. Passing 
as suddenly as it came, it left them a com- 
plete wreck, with all the masts over the side 
and the seams in the hull opened so wide 
that the ship was sinking rapidly. Hastily 
provisioning their small boats, they embarked 
in them and sailed for the nearest port, Co- 
lombo, in Ceylon, which they hoped to make 
in about a week’s sailing. The third day after 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 235 

the wreck the boats were separated by a squall, 
and soon after that the one commanded by 
Mr. Humphrey was picked up by a whal- 
ing ship bound for the Antarctic whaling 
grounds. The captain of the whaler, kind- 
hearted man though he was, could not afford 
to return to port to land the shipwrecked 
seamen, and the only thing for them to do 
was to go along with him. The whaling 
voyage lasted over a year, and on the return 
trip Mr. Humphrey was taken sick and was 
landed in Bombay, where he was sent to the 
hospital. There he lay for nearly three 
months, too weak to talk ; but as soon as he 
gained sufficient strength he asked the hos- 
pital surgeon, an American, to write to his 
mother the letter which the girls had read. 
As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he 
secured a mate’s berth in a homeward-bound 
vessel, and the long voyage completely re- 
stored him to his normal condition of robust 
health. 

At the conclusion of his narrative, in 
which he included many interesting details, 
Mr. Humphrey brought out his carved sea 


BETTY BAIRD 


236 

chest and showed the girls some of the 
quaint and curious things he had gathered 
together in his life at sea, during which he 
had visited practically all the important ports 
in every country on the globe. The chest 
was packed to overflowing with things sent 
to his mother from time to time, which she 
had carefully preserved for him, though he 
greatly mourned certain prized treasures lost 
when the ship went down. 

The girls’ eyes glowed at the sight, and 
Mr. Humphrey laughed as he said to his 
mother, — 

“Just look at their eyes, mother. You 
could hang hats on them,” which caused the 
girls to join heartily in the laughter. 

They were fairly breathless as they han- 
dled the marvellous products of Oriental 
patience and disregard of time. They were 
especially interested in the ancient bronze 
and carved ivory idols, the Japanese sword 
guards of measureless antiquity, the silver 
bracelets and anklets of delicate and intri- 
cate workmanship, the priceless India shawls 
and scarfs, the beautiful ivory inlaid teak- 


RETURN OF THE MARINER 237 

wood boxes, the slippers of grotesque shapes 
with wonderful decorative designs, the ivory 
fans covered with tiny carved figures, the 
choice collection of small-arms of all coun- 
tries, and numberless other things, of which 
the girls had never even heard. 

After they had seen and handled them to 
their hearts’ content, the two young girls 
were astonished beyond measure when Mr. 
Humphrey, thanking them for the joy they 
had brought to his mother, insisted that each 
should take as a memento of the occasion, 
one of the wonderful teakwood boxes, inlaid 
with carved ivory and bound with dainty 
hammered metal strips, among his most 
prized possessions. He sent to Miss Greene 
a wonderful centuries-old idol of carved ivory, 
which his mother knew would appeal to her 
antiquarian tastes. 

Clasping their treasures to their breasts 
and treading on air, the roommates walked 
to the school in a thrilling atmosphere of 
romance ; and it was many weeks before they 
lost the feeling that they were characters in 
an old romantic tale. 


XVII 


THE MASQUERADE 

T here was great excitement at The 
Pines when it was announced that 
they were again to have a masquer- 
ade. It had been omitted the year before, 
much to the disappointment of the pupils, 
for it was always the most popular entertain- 
ment given. The date set for it this year 
was Washington’s Birthday. It was strictly 
private, only the pupils attending. Betty 
was charmed with the idea and she and her 
roommate had many long conversations over 
the selection of their costumes. As far as 
possible the girls kept their disguises from 
each other, so that there was always great 
excitement when the time came for unmask- 
ing. Our roommates, however, did not at- 
tempt secrecy towards each other. 

“ Why, half the fun is in talking it over 
to each other and changing our minds every 


THE MASQUERADE 239 

half-hour,” said Betty. “ I ’m going to be 
some character that demands a black wig,” 
she went on, “ for I Ve always wanted black, 
jet black, hair, and now is my chance.” 

“ Well,” said Lois, “ what character will 
you take ? ” 

“ Oh, if I can’t do any better I shall make 
my character suit my wig. For one night I 
am going to be just the kind of looking girl 
I have always wanted to be. I am going to 
be tall, so I shall have high heels and wear 
my wig piled up on top of my head. My 
wig will be without one crimp. I love red 
cheeks, so I ’ll paint mine red like Jess’s. I 
shall wear red, all the red I can. I have 
been tied to blue until I am sick of it.” 

“Are you going to be a Japanese lady or 
Queen Isabella.'^” asked Lois, slyly. 

“ Oh, I have changed my mind again. I 
am going to be Volumnia, the noble Roman 
mother of Coriolanus. I ’ll have a red toga 
— did the women wear togas — and bands 
through my glorious black hair. I ’ll learn 
her speeches and quote them to every one 
I meet.” 


BETTY BAIRD 


240 

“ How many will know them ? ” asked 
Lois, whose common sense never deserted 
her. 

“ I shall,” answered Betty, grandly. “ I 
am going to enjoy myself. Of course,” she 
continued, as if it were an afterthought, “ I 
shall look at the other make-ups ; but for 
this one evening I am not going to be Eliz- 
abeth. I am to be Volumnia of Rome. I 
am going to make believe, just as I did when 
I was six years old. I ’ll be the Roman 
matron, but — ” and she looked pensive — 
“ I wish I could be proud of my son — I 
have to prod him so ! ” 

“ I should think you would enjoy that part 
of it, Betty,” laughed Lois. 

“ ‘ Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, 

Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest,’” 

quoted Betty, in mock sorrow. 

“ Do you know that two of the girls are 
going to wear their brothers’ military suits ? ” 
said Lois. 

“How do you know? I thought every- 
thing about the masquerade was to be such 
a secret.” 


THE MASQUERADE 241 

“A secret at The Pines! Impossible!” 
Lois exclaimed. 

“ Oh, I have it now, Lois. Let us be 
Viola and Sebastian. We can soon have 
suits made up like those we saw in Twelfth 
Night in New York. I must be Viola just 
so I can say, ‘ She never told her love,’ etc.” 

“ I reckon you ’ve forgotten that I sug- 
gested that right in the beginning. I do 
hope you ’ll stick to it long enough to get 
the suits made.” 

The evening for the masquerade came, 
and with it more Martha Washingtons, Mary 
Queen of Scots, and Charlotte Cordays, 
than this humdrum world could conveni- 
ently hold. The girls’ Viola and Sebastian 
costumes consisted of knee-breeches of brown 
cloth, brown stockings, buckled slippers, and 
brown capes reaching almost to the ground, 
while a jaunty brown cap with a feather in 
it completed each fetching get-up. As they 
wore wigs and were not unlike in size and 
weight they really seemed like twins. 

Jessie Bentworth naturally selected a mirth- 
provoking costume. With three other fun- 
16 


242 


BETTY BAIRD 


loving spirits she formed a quartette, — 
making a pun by the way, — and they named 
themselves “ The Sally Fourths.” Their 
make-up was extremely absurd and caused 
great amusement. They wore comic masks, 
both on their faces and on the backs of their 
heads, scoop bonnets open at both ends, 
rope hair falling down both sides of their 
shoulders, and gloves with two thumbs. As 
their long and remarkable skirts concealed 
their feet it was simply impossible to tell 
which way they were really facing. They 
were constantly followed by a troop of mas- 
queraders who in vain tried to discover the 
true faces. “ Poor Janus is a back number 
after this,” said one puzzled follower, 

A very modern looking cadet (Helen) 
paired off with Queen Elizabeth (Dorothy) 
who was in all the glory of a monstrous ruff 
for which she showed great solicitude; she 
was constantly, in shrewish tones, warning 
her companion to “ take care of my ruff.” 
A Quaker (Edna Norris) and a clown (Paul- 
ine Hays) apparently found some peculiar 
ground in common, for they were insepar- 


THE MASQUERADE 243 

able, the motley and the gray mingling in 
the dances; while Mephistopheles and Little 
Bo Peep sat cozily side by side on the stairs, 
Belle Hunter being Mephistopheles and 
Caroline, Bo Peep. 

The characters that caused most remark 
were Beauty and the Beast. As Jess said, 
it would take “a colossal nerve” for any one 
to take the part of Beauty, but when un- 
masking time came, she said she was not 
surprised to see Miriam’s face appear from 
behind the mask. The Beast’s costume 
was ingenious, including a donkey’s head of 
which the ears, eyes, and jaw moved and 
carried out the character of the animal in 
a startling manner. 

To Betty, the crowning feature of the 
evening came when Miss Greene as Martha 
Washington, and Miss Payne as Queen 
Elizabeth, accosted her without knowing 
who she was. She had purposely remained 
seated in a melancholy attitude, waiting for 
an opportunity to deliver her beloved speech. 

“ Prithee, young page, why of so mel- 
ancholy countenance ? ” asked the stately 


244 BETTY BAIRD 

queen, tapping “ him ” on the shoulder with 
her fan, while the sedate Martha Washing- 
ton stood by, in republican simplicity. With 
a despairing gesture and head bowed mourn- 
fully, the page repeated 

“ ‘ She never told her love, 

But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, 

Feed on her damask cheek : she pined in thought, 

And with a green and yellow melancholy 
She sat like patience on a monument, 

Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed ? 

We men may say more, swear more: but indeed 
Our shows are more than will ; for still we prove 
Much in our vows, but little in our love.’ ” 


So sadly impressive was the attitude and 
so thrilling the tone, that every eye in the 
room turned to the slight young figure, while 
the noble, sweet voice rang out. At the last 
words the two pages vanished through a 
nearby door, followed by loud clappings and 
cries of “Bravo;” but the pages remained 
invisible until the excitement had passed, 
when they came quietly in. 

The military suits, of which Lois had 
spoken, were very successful and lent dig- 
nity to the evening. After the Shakespeare 


THE MASQUERADE 245 

recital one of the wearers dogged Betty and 
Lois until they turned in great scorn. 

“ Hast no sword, good fellow } ” gibed 
Viola, shaking her toy sword. The two 
pages laughed scornfully and walked away, 
but the young soldier followed. 

“ Avaunt, or I’ll run you through,” threat- 
ened Sebastian; but the soldier pursued 
them courageously. 

“ Nature hath framed strange fellows in her 
time,” said Viola to Sebastian in a stage whis- 
per; and she continued, tauntingly, “Why 
are we so pestered with a popinjay ? ” 

“ Oh, monstrous ! ” replied Sebastian, look- 
ing back fiercely at their silent shadow. 
When the pages sat, the silent soldier sat; 
when they walked, he walked ; but never a 
word uttered he. 

“Who in the world is it?” Betty asked in 
an undertone. “ I did n’t think there was a 
girl in the school who could hold her tongue 
this long.” 

“ I ’m almost afraid,” said Lois. 

“Nonsense,” said Betty, “I’m proud of her, 
and I shall watch when the masks are taken 


BETTY BAIRD 


246 

off. There are four soldiers, so we must 
keep our eyes on them. By the way, Lois, 
I thought you told me only two of the girls 
were going to wear cadet suits. I wonder 
who else decided to wear them.” Then, 
insolently over her shoulder to the silent 
figure, — 

“ Art thou there, truepenny? ” 

“ How do 3^011 remember all those quota- 
tions ? ” sighed Lois, enviously. “ I can’t 
think of one.” 

“ Why, I have been quoting all my life, 
and many’s the time I have been scolded for 
it; but this proves that no learning is lost,” 
she answered in a mock-wise tone. 

“ Oh, I have thought of one,” rejoiced 
Lois, then turning sternly on the cadet, 
said, — 

“Assume a virtue if you have it not, and 
come here and try to talk.” 

The soldier came, and sat just in front of 
them ; but he said not a word. As he 
moved towards them Viola said, — 

“ By the pricking of my thumbs, something 
evil this way comes;” and she pointed her 


THE MASQUERADE 247 

sword at the grim soldier. “ Excellent dumb 
discourse,” she added, as they walked off, 
stumbling over their swords in their haste. 
“ For my voice, I have lost it,” she continued 
disdainfully. 

“ I was never so bethumped with words,” 
hissed at last the silent one ; and he disap- 
peared in the crowd. 

At the sound of his voice, Betty started. 
It was familiar, yet she could not at the 
instant recollect whose it was ; but it gave 
her an impression of not belonging to one 
of the schoolgirls. 

“ Did you recognize her voice ? ” she 
asked Lois. 

“ I have been wondering,” the latter an- 
swered. “ It sounds familiar, yet I can’t 
think which of the girls it is.” 

“ Well,” said Betty, “ We ’ll watch those 
cadets when they unmask. It was a good 
imitation of a boy’s voice ; but we certainly 
can pick her out from the four.” 

When the hour for unmasking arrived 
Betty leaned over excitedly to Lois and 
whispered, — 


248 BETTY BAIRD 

“ Lois ! There are only /wo cadets here, 
and I know neither of them was the one 
who spoke to us. Who could the other two 
have been ? And why are n’t they here 
now ? ” 

The two girls looked into each other’s 
puzzled eyes, as Lois repeated, — 

“ Who could they have been ? ” 


XVIII 

THE CLASS ELECTION 

T hroughout her second year 
Betty devoted herself assiduously 
to her studies. She was begin- 
ning to see school life with maturer eyes, to 
realize something of its value as a prepara- 
tion for the future ; while the Order of The 
Cup had revealed to her some of the deeper 
lessons of her relations to her fellow beings. 
She made special efforts to be of service to 
the new girls, to make them feel at home, 
and to help them in their studies, especially 
in Latin, where her father’s thorough training 
stood her in good stead. 

Almost all of the girls in the school joined 
the Order, of which Betty had been elected 
President. It had the warm approval of 
Miss Payne and Miss Greene, who felt that 
such a society was the best kind the girls 
could have ; young people as well as old, it 


250 BETTY BAIRD 

seemed, needed an organization to which to 
be loyal. 

Betty kept up an active correspondence 
with the Weston chapter of the Order, the 
members of which had much girlish pleas- 
ure in the fact that so many pupils at The 
Pines were affiliated with them in the work. 
Her constant endeavor to live up to the 
ideal of the Order made Betty thoughtful 
and gentle ; she was growing, intellectually 
and spiritually, far more than she knew. 
That she had grown physically was brought 
forcibly to her attention on the evening, late 
in the spring, when her class elected officers 
for the senior year. She dressed alone, and 
hurriedly put on the lilac silk, of which the 
sleeves, just a year ago, had been changed 
from Weston into Paris terms of style. She 
had not worn it for six months or more. As 
there was no pier glass in the room she did 
not notice the length of the skirt. Indeed, 
she rarely thought of her clothes, except in 
the matter of neatness — though in the first 
year in school she had had occasion to think 
a good deal whether or not they were near 


THE CLASS ELECTION 251 

enough to current styles to escape ridicule. 
Her hair, now almost golden as it outgrew its 
childish fairness, was less unruly and, though 
it fell in soft thick masses over her head, with 
only fluffy tendrils straying over her forehead, 
it was neatly turned up, with a black bow as 
its ornament. 

This evening, as Betty quickly traversed 
the brightly lighted corridors, she met Mir- 
iam, who gave her one long look, then ran 
away laughing mockingly. 

“ What is she laughing about ? ” Betty 
asked herself. She stood under the electric 
light pondering, before entering the recita- 
tion-room where the election was to be held, 
when Miriam returned with two of her fol- 
lowers, and silently and insolently stared up 
and down at Betty’s dress ; then they broke 
forth into peals of harsh laughter. 

“ What is the matter with you girls ? ” 
demanded Betty ; but no one replied, and 
the laughter brought other girls to the scene, 
Jessie and Dorothy among them. 

“ What is that goose laughing about, 
anyway?” she asked Jess and Dorothy, 


BETTY BAIRD 


252 

for her temper was aroused by Miriam’s 
manner. 

“ I can’t see anything to laugh about,” 
answered Jess. “What is it all about 
she demanded curtly of Miriam, with whom 
she had lost all patience ; but Miriam and 
her friends only continued their sneering 
laughter. 

“ Can’t you see that her dress is too 
funny ” at last said Miriam, derisively. 

“ It is four inches too short,” commented 
another. 

“ Perfectly killing ! ” added Miriam. 

“ She looks like little Violet Dare, and 
she shows her black stockings. They ’re 
cotton, too, I do believe,” said the third girl. 

Jess looked down at the dress. “You’re 
a perfect dunce, Miriam!” she said. Betty 
too looked down at it. 

“ For pity’s sake I ” she exclaimed, de- 
lightedly. “ Why, I am growing like a bad 
weed. I have n’t had this on for six months, 
so you see what a giant I ’ll soon be.” 

“ You *re a regular beanstalk,” .said Dor- 
othy, as Betty turned to Miriam to say, — 


THE CLASS ELECTION 253 

“ Thank you with all my heart for calling 
my attention to my dress. It would have 
been more like you to allow me to go into 
the room just as I am. This is not the first 
time you have tried to make me a laughing- 
stock and failed. You did not think far 
enough this evening.” 

“ Well, she ’s sorry enough now that she 
did n’t wait. She did n’t think of it until 
you spoke. I saw that in her face,” said 
Dorothy. 

Betty looked down at her short skirt rue- 
fully. “ It will take more ruffles and bands 
than Miss Jane has at her command to 
elongate this dress sufficiently.” 

The election this year was marked by 
unusual electioneering and wire-pulling by 
Miriam in her efforts to defeat Betty, who 
was regarded by nearly all of the members 
of the class as the only logical candidate for 
the presidency. Miriam, with a zeal worthy 
of a better cause, was determined to defeat 
her, and for this purpose nominated Helen 
Dyke, who consented only after Miriam had 


BETTY BAIRD 


254 

used her most persuasive powers to convince 
her that it was not a good thing to have 
only one candidate. 

The coming election was much discussed 
in the corridors, and feeling ran high. 

“ Why, Betty is the only one to be con- 
sidered,” said Lois, “ for what other girl has 
her power of organization, of ready invention, 
and of gracious presiding ? ” 

“ Her voice alone would outweigh all other 
considerations,” said Caroline, who had grown 
to admire Betty to such an extent that she 
copied her language, as far as her gifts would 
allow. 

“Yes, and there are her graceful, odd little 
ways, like no one else’s in the world. Mary 
Livingstone used to say they were ‘ distin- 
guished,’ ” said Jess. 

“ Don’t you think she is stuck up since 
she visited the Livingstones and the Kings 
at Easter? They made such a fuss over 
her,” asked one of the newer girls, who had 
come under Miriam’s influence. 

Lois and Jess laughed. 

“It would n’t be hard to tell where you 


THE CLASS ELECTION 255 

heard that,” said Jess. “ Miriam is saying 
that to all the new girls.” 

“Yes, it was Miriam,” answered the new 
girl. 

“ Ugh ! I knew it,” said Jess, in a disgusted 
tone, looking at the others. 

“ Why, Betty never thinks whether people 
are rich or not,” said Lois, spiritedly. “ When 
she returned, she talked about it just as she 
does about everything else. It was a new 
experience for her, and she felt their kind 
hospitality. Mary wrote to me that every 
one went wild over her, and one old lady 
insisted on taking her to Europe.” 

“ Was n’t it fortunate, girls, that Miriam 
laughed at Betty’s short dress in the cor- 
ridor ? ” said Jess. “ It made me mad at 
first, but now I am glad of it. You know 
girls are mighty funny about such things, 
and if she had appeared before the class that 
way and some one had started a laugh, it 
might have lost her the election.” 

“ Here she comes now ! ” exclaimed Caro- 
line. “ Does n’t she look too sweet for 
anything in white! I can’t see how any 


256 BETTY BAIRD 

one would think of voting for any other 
girl.” 

The three girls then formed an escort of 
honor to conduct Betty into the class-room, 
where she was received with such a storm of 
applause that Miriam’s face fell with disap- 
pointment. The election that followed re- 
sulted, as Jess expressed it, in a “ walk-over” 
for Betty, who went to her room proud and 
happy as the recipient of the highest honor 
in the bestowal of her class-mates. 

Lois, Jess, Caroline, Dorothy, and Belle 
followed her to her room to congratulate her. 

“ What a pity it is that Mary Livingstone 
is n’t here ! She would be so proud of you,” 
said Jess. 

“ Oh, dont I wish she were here ! ” ex- 
claimed Betty, fervently. “ I have missed her 
terribly this year. But then, I have had 
such good friends,” she added, looking about 
affectionately, and putting her arms around 
the necks of Lois and Jess, who were sitting 
beside her on the window-seat. 

“ Do you know what I have been thinking 
about.?” she continued. “I was thinking 


THE CLASS ELECTION 257 

how hard it was for me at first, when the 
girls made fun of my funny old dresses, and 
how easy it was this evening when Miriam 
laughed at me; just because I have the best 
friends in the world; ” and jumping up, she 
gave each of them a regular bear’s hug and 
a vigorous kiss. 


XIX 


BETTY AND LOIS TALK OVER THE SUMMER 

T WO delighted girls threw themselves 
into each other’s arms on the open- 
ing day of their third year at The 
Pines. Lois had spent the summer in 
Europe with her father; Betty had stayed 
in Weston, with the exception of a number 
of short visits to relatives with her parents. 
Each was full of questions and stirring tales 
of the summer’s experiences. 

As soon as dinner was finished, they rushed 
up to their room and, after some preliminary 
hugs and kisses and smoothings of hair and 
exclamations of delight at being together 
again, they began. Fast as the human 
tongue could go, they recited in turn every 
detail of the summer. Lois told of her trav- 
els in England, Scotland, Holland, France, 
and Switzerland, of interesting places and 
quaint customs. Fascinating as they had 


BETTY AND LOIS 259 

been, however, her warm heart turned read- 
ily enough from them to the people in 
Weston, whom she had learned to love 
dearly, because they first had given her in- 
sight into the depths of genuine human 
affections, of which, by reason of her early 
orphanhood and her father’s travelling life, 
she had known almost nothing before her 
visit to Weston two years before. She in- 
sisted that Betty must tell her everything 
connected with her father and mother, which 
the latter gladly did, then asked her, — 

“ Now, Lois, whom do you want to hear 
about next ? ” 

“ Oh, dear Miss Jane and Elder Huggen- 
tugler, of course, the two dearest old people 
in the world ! ” exclaimed Lois. 

“Yes, but I can’t tell you about them both 
at once, can I ? Which one first ? ” insisted 
Betty. 

“Well, Miss Jane first,” said Lois. “ How 
often I think of her ! Does she still ‘ calc’- 
late how eggs is ’ ? ” 

“Oh, dear, yes; and she still knits wash 
rags. I have one she sent you. I forgot to 


26 o 


BETTY BAIRD 


get it out of my trunk. The red border 
shows her love for you. Only her pets get 
a red border, for she thinks it a sinful waste 
of time to ornament anything but waists. I 
was at her house for tea just before I left 
home, and it was one of the best meals I ever 
ate. Such neatness and refinement, too ! 
But just imagine how I felt, Lois, when we 
were seated, and her mother said to me, 
‘ Make yourself to hum, ’Lizbeth. We ’re to 
hum, and we wish you was too ! ’ ” 

“But — but — Betty, I don’t understand. 
Her mother is one of the dearest old ladies 
in the world. Surely she did n’t mean that 
she wanted you to go home.” 

“Wanted me to go home!” and Betty 
laughed and laughed until the tears ran down 
her cheeks. “ Why, of course not, you little 
goose. What she meant was that she wanted 
me to feel as ‘ homey ’ as if it were really my 
own home.” 

“ Oh 1 ” exclaimed Lois, and she too laughed 
hilariously. 

“ But that wasn’t the funniest,” Betty con- 
tinued. “ Miss Jane’s nephew was there, and 


BETTY AND LOIS 


261 


when I took a second leg of the best fried 
chicken I ever tasted, the little fellow eyed 
me in such a heart-broken way and squalled 
out, ‘Oh, Aunty Jane, there she’s gone and 
et my leg.’ ” 

“Oh, I can see it all, just how Miss Jane 
glared at him ! ” laughed Lois. 

“ Did n’t she, though ! So many funny 
things happened this summer.” 

“ Oh, tell me every one of them. I love to 
hear about those dear, funny people.” 

“Why, just think! One Sunday morning 
dear old Elder Huggentugler, evidently ab- 
sorbed in something, walked into the church 
clear down to his pew, which you know is in 
the very front, with his hat on, and his old 
green umbrella open and held high over his 
head. Even father had to hide a smile 
behind his hand.” 

“What’s that speech Mr. Dinkum said 
every Wednesday night at prayer-meeting? 
I was trying to think of it this summer to tell 
father when he was blue, but I could n’t 
remember exactly what it was.” 

“Oh, Lois, don’t you remember how he 


262 


BETTY BAIRD 


always wound up, his trembling voice rising 
continually to the end, ‘ So I ’ll roll round 
with the year and never stand still, ’til the 
Master appears and says, “ It is enough. 
Come up higher.” 

“ Has he washed yet ? ” asked Lois, 
laughing. 

“ There is no evidence of it,” said Betty. 
“You know how clean Elder Huggentugler 
always is. He says it ‘ riles his stumick * 
to see that dirty man. One Wednesday 
evening in prayer-meeting I was sitting next 
to him. We were singing ‘ On Jordan’s 
Stormy Banks I Stand,’ and right in front of 
us was Mr. Dinkum, singing at the top of his 
voice. The Elder leaned over to me and 
with such a funny twinkle in his eye, whis- 
pered, ‘ I hope that dirty man falls in and 
washes some of the coal off of him before he 
gets across,’ and he grinned most mali- 
ciously. 

“You know how the Elder used to talk 
about that ‘ screech-owl,’ as he always called 
the organ. He’s gotten all over that. He 
loves music so much that he could n’t keep 


BETTY AND LOIS 263 

out. We organized a choir and always sang 
an opening anthem ; and he just could n’t 
keep away. He says now he really believes 
he is n’t as much of a stick-in-the-mud as he 
thought he was.” 

“ Perhaps your singing in the choir had 
something to do with the change,” suggested 
Lois. 

“ Do you think so ? ” asked the surprised 
girl. “ I never thought of that. I guess it 
was his love for music not for me. 

“ Do you remember Mary Smith,” she con- 
tinued, “who came to the house one evening 
with her beau, John Hill, for tickets for the 
festival, and stayed so long and said such 
funny things.*^ Well, they were married 
this summer.” 

“ Oh, were they ! ” exclaimed Lois. 

“ Yes, they came to our house for the cere- 
mony. Mary insisted on having a rehearsal, 
though there was no one but our family to 
witness the ceremony. So we all went into 
the sitting-room where father rehearsed them. 
As we started to the parlor, Mary admonished 
John to keep his hat on during the ceremony. 


264 BETTY BAIRD 

When I objected, she said she thought as 
she wore her hat he ought to wear his, add- 
ing, ‘ He looks so nice in his new stove-pipe ; ’ 
and John wore it.” 

The girls laughed until Jess came in to 
see what they were laughing about. 


XX 


HER COMMENCEMENT 

B ETTY’S last year at The Pines was 
a time of great development. Al- 
ways graceful and untrammelled, her 
slender figure had acquired a dignity of car- 
riage which, combined with the rapidly in- 
creasing maturity of her face, gave a vivid 
impression of forceful personality. She lost 
none of her vivacity or brightness of spirit; 
always cheerful and hopeful, she brimmed 
over with sunshine. 

She possessed, too, that indefinable some- 
thing which the girls called “ style,” and 
those who looked deeper spoke of as 
“ charm,” a distinction which came princi- 
pally from her self-forgetfulness. By some 
rare good fortune Betty had skipped that 
painful period of self-consciousness, when the 
real girl seems, for a time, to become impris- 
oned, and some suffering, blushing, unhappy 


266 


BETTY BAIRD 


and malapert witch to have usurped her 
place. Poor misunderstood things ! When 
they want to make a brilliant speech, nine 
times out of ten they are accused of imper- 
tinence or sarcasm. Their speeches before 
and after being made, it seems to them, are 
like the trick of the clever magician, in 
which he puts a rose up his sleeve and in 
its place takes out a viper. 

This lack of awkwardness in Betty Miss 
Greene believed to be due to the influence 
of the Order of The Cup, which early had 
taught her to consider other people’s feel- 
ings and interests, until her own had only 
a normal and healthy proportion of her 
thoughts and dreams. But Betty remained 
a dreamer to the end; a dreamer in the 
sense of one to whom came beautiful visions 
of life as it might be — and as she was 
young enough to believe it would be — 
thoughts that lifted her feet from the earth 
to walk on clouds. They kept her young 
in the ways of the world and indifferent 
to worldly valuations, though her growing 
sense of fitness and beauty made her sensi- 


HER COMMENCEMENT 267 

tive to the many small amenities and cere- 
monies of life, of which she had been 
blissfully ignorant when she first came to 
The Pines. 

She profited greatly, too, by her associa- 
tion with the strong characters of Miss 
Greene and Miss Spice, whose influence 
supplemented that of the equally strong, 
though essentially different, character of her 
mother. 

Miss Greene was, in the best sense, a wo- 
man of the world, cultured by contact with 
leaders of thought and action, both here and 
abroad ; not only a teacher, but a writer on 
the great educational topics of the day, and 
a participant in many of the advanced phil- 
anthropic movements of the metropolis; in 
all respects a woman of action, yet one who 
had kept her heart warm and her spirit 
youthful, and whose never-failing apprecia- 
tion of the sources of girlhood impulses 
made her a much-sought confidante and 
adviser of the young. 

Betty’s mother, cultivated in all the good 
old home culture of which New England is 


268 


BETTY BAIRD 


justly proud (for she had moved to Pennsyl- 
vania from New England), was of all women 
the most unworldly. Education she had of 
the highest degree. She was widely read 
in the masterpieces of ancient and modern 
literature, and thoroughly conversant with the 
topics of the times, as presented in the lead- 
ing newspapers and magazines ; yet she con- 
ceived her duty to lie chiefly, if not entirely, 
with her home and her husband’s flock. To 
them she was ministering angel, counsellor, 
guide, and friend. 

Between these two, similar in breeding 
and feeling, though so far apart in their ex- 
periences of life, both representing in its 
highest type the “ grand old name ” of gen- 
tlewoman, Betty received rare training in 
all the essentials of perfect womanhood. 

Miss Spice, more than any other teacher 
at The Pines, developed her love of learn- 
ing for its own sake. She was pre-eminently 
the scholar of the school. To study, and to 
teach the thing she loved to study, made up 
to Miss Spice almost the sum and substance 
of life. A somewhat extended sojourn in 


HER COMMENCEMENT 269 

foreign countries had meant little but addi- 
tional opportunities for adding to her store 
of knowledge, and of these she had availed 
herself to the full. 

Her learning, however, had not destroyed 
her sympathy with the submerged of our 
great cities, and her one hobby — a hobby 
which had survived the trials of ten years 
— was the Settlement work in New York, 
to which the festival of the Order of The 
Cup had generously contributed. Her inter- 
est in Betty, starting with her desire to see 
her progress in her own beloved branch of 
mathematics, had been greatly increased and 
intensified by Betty’s enthusiasm for the 
Order, whose efforts, so far as it concerned 
the members’ work outside of their own im- 
mediate environment, she had turned princi- 
pally in the direction of supporting enlarged 
fresh-air work by the Settlement. 

Betty’s cousin. Miss Payne, had exercised 
very little influence on her life. Almost con- 
tinual travelling had kept her away from the 
school. She had been in England, and, 
the girls said, in every city and town in the 


BETTY BAIRD 


270 

United States that boasted a woman’s club. 
During her long and frequent absences Miss 
Greene had charge of the school, and its suc- 
cess was abundant testimony to her ability to 
conduct it. 

In Lois, Betty found an ideal companion 
and friend ; during those first weeks of her 
severe trial, their friendship struck its roots 
deep into the soil of sympathy and similarity 
of taste and feeling. It was a friendship 
unique among schoolgirls for its stability 
and its unselfishness. Though unlike in 
many characteristics, the two girls never 
jarred, and, in all their dreams of the future 
— which were many, in this dream-time of 
early girlhood — they were always together, 
doing the same things, loving the same peo- 
ple, cherishing the same ideals. 

Mary Livingstone, next to Lois, was the 
schoolmate Betty admired most, and that she 
was several years older only added to her 
charm ; but Mary had graduated the first 
year, and since then they had met only on 
Betty’s short visit to 'New York and at 
the commencement season. She had been 


HER COMMENCEMENT 271 

Betty’s first champion when the latter was 
the poor, persecuted little soul, and as such 
she would wear a halo throughout Betty’s 
life. Yes, her future would be without some 
of its essential ingredients, if she could not 
see Mary often. 

During the year, Betty and Miriam were 
thrown more and more into each other’s 
society, until the bitterness of Miriam’s feel- 
ing greatly diminished, owing to the out- 
growing of childish jealousy and to the 
determination of some of their friends that 
they should come together in a united class 
sentiment. Of course Betty was pleased to 
be on less unpleasant terms with the only 
unfriendly girl in the school, and she went 
fully half-way to make up. While their re- 
lationship never developed into friendship, at 
least it ceased to be open hostility. 

Betty and Lois resumed their reading to 
Mrs. Humphrey, and continued it through 
the year, for her son had been appointed 
master of a ship and had gone off on an- 
other long voyage, though not before seeing 
his mother provided with a constant com- 


BETTY BAIRD 


272 

panion. The son’s long letters about distant 
lands and adventures afforded them intense 
delight, and the elderly woman and the 
two young girls passed many gay hours, 
imagining the things the sailor graphically 
described. 

Commencement week came, and the life 
at The Pines, which at first had seemed 
interminable, was now almost at an end. 
Betty said it reminded her of an accordeon, 
all stretched out at the beginning, three 
years before, and now closed, the folded 
years hidden away and the two ends meet- 
ing. She had gone through her final ex- 
aminations with flying colors, and had gained 
the proud post of Valedictorian ; Dorothy 
was Salutatorian ; Miriam was Class Poet; 
Jess, as Class Historian, found ample field 
for her jokes and bright reminiscences ; Lois 
held the grave position of Class Prophet, 
and she and Betty had some happy hours as 
they dreamed of the future of this wonderful 
class. 

For Betty, one of the greatest events of 


HER COMMENCEMENT 273 

the week was the coming of Mr. Byrd, and 
she was all excitement over seeing her best 
friend’s father. He was small and delicate 
looking, and one saw at a glance that the 
daughter had inherited many of her fine and 
charming traits from this very reserved but 
lovable man. His health required him to 
spend a large part of his time in travel, 
and he was rejoiced that in the future he 
would have his daughter for a travelling 
companion. 

Of course Betty’s father and mother 
came, and every one at once fell in love 
with the sweet faced woman. There was 
some shyness with the father, to whose pro- 
found scholarship Miss Payne had more than 
once referred. His apparent coldness, the 
result of a natural reserve and a studious life, 
gave to strangers the impression of hauteur, 
which his somewhat pedantic phraseology 
tended to augment; but his parishioners, 
who knew the sterling qualities that under- 
lay the reserved exterior, never made this 
mistake. On this occasion he fell easily and 
naturally into his place, in the company of 
18 


BETTY BAIRD 


274 

the Bishop and the other learned men who 
had honored the occasion with their pres- 
ence; with them he was perfectly at ease, 
and discussed the most abstruse questions 
with the utmost freedom, and an authority 
of erudition that gave him a high position 
among them. 

The most startling event of that moment- 
ous week was — who would believe it ? — that 
Miss Jane and the Elder came with Doctor 
and Mrs. Baird to see Betty graduate ! The 
roommates could hardly believe the astound- 
ing news, but the first thing they saw, as 
the train stopped, was Miss Jane’s eager 
face and, waving behind it, the Elder’s old 
green umbrella. The Elder became a great 
favorite with the class, and he “did himself 
proud ” by presenting to Betty’s particular 
friends some “ real nice posies,” as he called 
the superb roses he had brought for the 
great occasion, roses of his own growing; 
but he saved an immense bunch to give to 
Betty when she read her valedictory. 

Miss Jane had the “ time of her life,” and 
not only inspected the “ styles ” at a distance, 


HER COMMENCEMENT 275 

but “ felt of ” the lovely gowns, until she had 
a full realization of the “ flimsy ” character of 
modern materials, and of the shame of wast- 
ing time and money on them. The inside 
seams of gowns fresh from some famous 
metropolitan dressmaker were a “ scandal ” 
to her. While at the school. Miss Jane’s 
manner in private was very severe over the 
extravagance and the poor inside finish of 
the dresses; but when she got back to 
Weston it underwent a complete change, 
and her air of authority on such matters, as 
she told of the splendors of The Pines, was 
a wonder to behold. 

Commencement day arrived, and to the 
eager eyes scanning the sky at daybreak, it 
presented an unbroken expanse of heavenly 
blue. Night came on fair and cool for that 
time of the year, though, so accommodating 
is nature at rare times — for which we love 
her as we do infrequent smiles — it was not 
too cool for those ideal dress materials of a 
young girl’s commencement — white mull, 
organdie, and Swiss. 

Betty’s simple, lovely dress, the gift of her 


BETTY BAIRD 


276 

cousin, gave her a feeling of rapture that 
only one other dress can equal in a girl’s 
lifetime. Lois wore one not unlike it. In- 
deed, all the girls looked like white rose- 
buds from the quaint old garden, which they 
were soon to leave forever. 

The music, the flowers, the soft summer 
air, the glamour of to-morrow — the dear, 
fearful future — all gave a joy akin to sor- 
row, indeed, the nearest to sorrow that many 
of them had ever felt ; but hopes were high, 
and Life was a “fair sea” on which their 
tiny barks would soon be launched. Life ! 
Just the word thrilled them ! How it ran 
like a golden thread through all they said, 
these fair, brave young mariners ! 

The Elder, at eighty, was awed into some- 
thing like respect for this “ Life ” he had so 
unthinkingly sailed. Having his work to do, 
he had never meditated on it ; but, as it fell 
from the sweet young lips, the word took on 
a new meaning, and he tried to catch its 
elusive sense. 

Miss Jane just enjoyed the “purtiness ” of 
it all, keeping one unwavering eye on Betty, 



“ She was a very different girl from the one who had come to the 
school nearly three years before.” Page 





HER COMMENCEMENT 277 

and the other on the outlook for anything 
new in styles. 

When Betty arose to deliver the vale- 
dictory, Mrs. Baird clasped her hands and 
turned pale ; the Doctor sat immovable, but 
intense; Miss Jane peered around to see 
how every one was taking that ravishing 
vision, then her eyes never left the girl’s 
face ; the Elder crouched down in his seat, 
and waited for the music of her voice ; the 
Bishop’s face brightened, and he leaned over 
to whisper to Paul, whose glance at Betty 
and affirmative nod to his grandfather seemed 
to have something in common ; while the 
body of students, seated in the front rows, 
greeted their leader, their heroine, with a 
subdued, worshipful “ Ah ! ” 

As she stood there, her face slightly flushed 
with excitement, she was a very different girl 
from the one who had come to the school 
nearly three years before. Though perhaps 
not tall for her age, she was above the me- 
dium height, her tow-colored hair had dark- 
ened, and the yellow tints had deepened, 


BETTY BAIRD 


278 

until it could, without any stretch of the 
imagination, be called golden ; the unruly 
tangle had become a soft, fluffy wave, which 
made a charming frame for the sweet young 
face. In her dark brown eyes were golden 
lights which, caught between the thick 
lashes, gave a feeling of brightness, of sun- 
light. 

Her voice had long been noted for its 
richness and sweetness, and that, combined 
with an inspiring personality, lent to her 
words, perhaps, undue importance ; but that 
they were of unusual weight for one so 
young was acknowledged by the Bishop, 
who felt, like the Elder, that he had discov- 
ered the young girl and had a part in her 
triumphs. 

As she stood there ready to read her short 
farewell, a little dog, his tail drooping in 
utter dejection, walked pathetically up the 
aisle and across the platform, and sat down 
sorrowfully at Betty’s side, on her first train, 
looking up into her face with sad, adoring 
eyes. He had been rolling in the mud, and 
the tear-stained locks marked dark circles 


HER COMMENCEMENT 279 

around his bloodshot and melancholy eyes. 
Patiently he sat there, and Betty, evidently 
careful not to disturb him, looked down with 
a smile and went on speaking without a 
break. With his dismal old face turned up 
adoringly, he watched her until she had fin- 
ished, joined in the storm of applause that 
followed, by thumping his stumpy tail 
wildly on the floor, then walked slowly off 
the platform and disappeared as he had 
come. 

After Miss Payne had uttered the clos- 
ing words of the exercises, Betty sat there 
receiving congratulations, surrounded by 
bouquets of magnificent flowers from the 
Livingstones and half a dozen other city 
friends, from the Bishop and his grandsons, 
from the Elder, from Miss Jane, from Lois’s 
father, and from many undergraduates. But 
the Elder said, — 

“ She ’s the purtiest posy of ’em all.” 


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12mo. Decorated cloth, ^1.50. 

A story of four girls who went through the four years’ 
course at one of the large colleges, presumably Vassar. 
The life of the four girls in the college and in their four rooms 
is faithfully pictured through freshman, sophomore, junior, 
and senior year. The college spirit overcomes the selfishness 
and the dislikes of the girls, and they eventually become 
loving comrades. 

BETTY BAIRD. By Anna Hamlin Weikel. Illustrated 
by Ethel Pennewill Brown. 12mo. Decorated 
cloth, $1.50. 

A new boarding-school story with a heroine so animated 
and charming that she cannot help being a favorite. 
Betty enters the school dressed in rather old-fashioned style 
and is treated coldly at first, but her attractiveness and 
genuine lovableness soon win her many friends, and she 
graduates as valedictorian. There is not a dull page in this 
unusually bright and entertaining story. 

ROBERTA AND HER BROTHERS. By Alice Ward 
Bailey, author of Mark Heffron,” etc. Illustrated 
by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. 12mo. Decorated 
cloth, $1.50. 

A WHOLESOME, natural story about a girl who is delight- 
fully human, full of life, ambitious for her brothers 
more than herself, and eager to take a mother’s place in their 
lives. She has many home trials, and pleasures as well, in- 
cluding a summer in the Adirondacks, and there is finally a 
chapter of college experience. The characters are all genuine 
and original. 


LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 


New Stories for Girls 


JANET: HER WINTER AT QUEBEC. By Anna 
Chapin Ray, author of Teddy: Her Book/’ Sidney: 
Her Summer on the St. Lawrence/’ etc. Illustrated 
by Alice Barber Stephens. 12mo. Decorated 
cloth, $1.50. 

T he second volume in the new and popular “Sidney” 
Series, by the author of the famous Teddy Books. Sidney 
Stayre and Ronald Leslie and his sister Janet, who figure in 
“Sidney: Her Summer on the St. Lawrence,” are among the 
principal characters. The fun of this delightful book is fur- 
nished by a warm-hearted but rather stolid young English- 
man, Sir George Porteous. 

BRENDA’S WARD. By Helen Leah Reed, author of 
the Brenda Books, “Irma and Nap,” etc. Illustrated. 
12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50. 

I N “ Brenda’s Ward ” Helen Leah Reed has written a sixth 
volume of her popular “ Brenda ” Series for girls. In this 
new story Brenda herself is less conspicuous than her so- 
called ward, Martine, the bright Western girl, who was a 
leading figure in “ Amy in Acadia.” A large part of the new 
story is given to Martine’s pleasant winter at school in 
Boston, and her character strengthening after certain reverses 
of fortune. 

THE GIRLS OF PINERIDGE. By Charlotte Curtis 
Smith. Illustrated by Beatrice Baxter Ruyl. 12mo. 
Decorated cloth, $1.50. 

D elightful and natural children, animated conversa- 
tions and a simple and unaffected style will commend this 
book to young people. A love for the woods and for “green 
things growing,” and for all kinds of birds and animals is the 
dominant note in the book, but it is not made obtrusive nor 
expressed didactically. 


LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 


New Books for the Young 


READY THE RELIABLE. By Lily F. Wesselhoeft, 
author of Sparrow the Tramp/’ etc. Illustrated 
by Chase Emerson. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50. 

A nother delightful animal story by this favorite author, 
in which she attempts to show how adversity develops 
the energy and awakens the sense of responsibility in children, 
which traits would lie dormant or be misdirected in a life of 
luxury. The story will impress young readers with a sense 
of the distinct individuality of every animal. 

THE DEAR OLD HOME. By Sara Ellmaker 
Ambler. With 8 full-page illustrations. 12mo. Dec- 
orated cloth, $1.50. 

T he scene of this original and entertaining story, which 
will delight both boys and girls, is laid in one of the 
Amish settlements of Pennsylvania. Serena and her brother 
Dick, city children, upon a long visit to their grandmother, 
became acquainted with Beppie and Pharaoh, two Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch children. The love-games, quiet adventures, 
and the boy sports which are described in the story will 
please and entertain children. 


OLD HOME DAY AT HAZELTOWN. By A. G. 
Plympton, author of Dear Daughter Dorothy,” 
etc. Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood. 12mo. Dec- 
orated cloth, $1.50. 

M ISS PLYMPTON has made the Old Home Day sentiment 
the basis of a pretty story. The story is told in a 
straightforward manner and the interest never flags. Roxy 
and her grandmother are both natural characters. The feeling 
for family and one’s own town, and the sentiment of the song 
“ Home, Sweet Home ” are made a part of the story. Narra- 
tive and conversation are characterized by the same animation 
that one finds in the writer’s other popular books. 


LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 


New Books for the Young 


NANCY RUTLEDGE AND HER FRIENDS. By 
Katharine Pyle, author of The Christmas Angel,” 
“As the Goose Flies,” “In the Green Forest,” etc. 
With 6 full-page illustrations by the author. 12mo. 
Decorated cloth, $1.25. 

A new story written and illustrated by this popular author 
will delight children of about eight years old. It is 
right in spirit, with natural children, and a wholesome atmos- 
phere. The different traits of Nancy, the little heroine of the 
story, become apparent as the chapters progress, and her 
especial friendship with a small neighbor is developed. 

IN EASTERN WONDERLANDS. By Charlotte 
Chaffee Gibson. Illustrated from photographs. 
12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50. 

A BRIGHT story of a trip around the world, with the em- 
phasis on Japan, China, Ceylon, India, the Red Sea, 
and Egypt. It is thoroughly adapted to the comprehension 
of children and admirably suited for their entertainment and 
instruction. Its peculiar merit lies in the fact that it is a 
story of a real trip made by three real children. 

LONG AGO IN GREECE. A Book of Golden Hours 
with the Old Story Tellers. By Edmund J. Car- 
penter. Illustrated. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50. 

A BOOK of classic fable and romance, from the ancient 
story tellers, retold for young people, giving in simpli- 
fied and shortened form Homer’s “Battle of the Frogs and 
Mice,” a stirring bit from the “Birds” of Aristophanes, the 
story of Phaethon and the runaway horses of Apollo, the 
wooing of Pelops, Atalanta’s Foot Race, the story of Hero 
and Leander, etc. The entire book will arouse a keener in- 
terest in the work of the classic poets, and will thoroughly 
entertain as well. 


LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 



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